Getting paid to travel the world may be far easier to achieve than you think.
In fact, there is a growing number of canny people who make sure all their holiday costs are covered while they relax in the sun.
The easiest and most lucrative way to do this is to rent out your house while you’re away. My friend Neil has rented out his two-up, two-down terrace in York on Airbnb many times to make some hassle-free spending money. You can make £50 to £100 a night doing this in a city or tourist hotspot like York, which would cover a nice trip away.
There’s a whole host of apps and websites that you can sign up with to tell others that your home is available for hire. Obviously there is Airbnb, but there are others that have jumped on the bandwagon too, including holidaylettings.co.uk, vrbo.com and booking.com, on all of which you can quite easily create and manage a listing.
General rental sites like spare room.co.uk or mondaytofriday.com also offer good ways to find people who want a longer stay rather than just a few nights.
There is a growing number of canny people who make sure all their holiday costs are covered while they relax in the sun by renting out their own homes
SpareRoom and Monday to Friday tenants are usually young adults or business people looking for a stopgap while they find more long-term accommodation, so they not only want longer stays, but are less of a risk than some randoms from Airbnb.
You don’t earn as much as you would through one of the holiday booking sites, as you’re catering for people looking for a short residential let, which averages a little over £250 a week. But it means you can rent out the property for the entire time you’re away without having to ask a friend to clean your house and make the beds.
Listings on SpareRoom are free. Airbnb and Holiday Lettings, meanwhile, take a 3 per cent commission, while booking.com takes a whopping 15 per cent cut. What you can do, though, is specify a minimum stay. That will weed out the really short-term renters but could make it harder for you to find someone to rent the place
Having done this myself, I recommend you lock away any valuables or delicate items. It’s not worth the worry.
Jasmine Birtles helps you with the cost of living crunch
There are a few legalities to check, like whether your local authority has a ban on Airbnb-type listings (a few councils make you apply for a planning ‘change of use’ to holiday lets if you do it more than 90 nights in a year), and whether you need to increase your home insurance. Airbnb, for instance, covers you for up to $1m (£777,440) in insurance, but your own home insurance provider may also need you to pay a small fee to include renters to your policy.
If you just don’t fancy having someone else stay in your home while you’re not there, you could always rent out your empty driveway instead. Having a car on your drive could also keep away would-be burglars.
Again, the amount you could earn depends on where you live. If you’re in a city or near a major sporting venue, like Wimbledon, where parking is a big problem during certain weeks of the year, your drive will be more in-demand than if you live on Dartmoor.
There are loads of companies that specialise in driveway rentals including justpark.com, parkonmydrive.com, stashbee.com and yourparkingspace.co.uk. You will also find people listing their driveways on Gumtree, Facebook and other less-specialist sites. The three cities most in demand for parkers are London, Edinburgh and Brighton, where parking near the centre typically starts from £9.50 a day (if you exclude the chancers charging £50+).
The ultimate earner is to become a house-sitter and get a free holiday in someone else’s home in return for keeping it safe and looking after their pets.
If you rent out your home and driveway while you’re house-sitting at someone else’s, you will return home a lot richer.
Homesitters.co.uk is a home and pet-sitting company that matches trustworthy people with homeowners who need their places, and possibly their pets, looked after for a while.
You would need to go to their head office in Aylesbury to be interviewed and have good references for the previous 20 years to join the agency. Once you’re on their books you could look after someone’s home for around £30 a day, which includes a food allowance and petrol costs to and from the property. If there are pets to look after, your pay would increase depending on the type of pet, the number of pets, and the duties involved.
Buy your boiler now for a bargain
At this time of year, I start thinking of boilers. Yes, I know, I’m strange!
But one great way to save money is to buy goods and services off-season and that very much applies to boilers.
Plumb job: Summer is a good time to get an annual service
Research from the plumbing services website fairfix.com has found that a quarter of us encountered boiler issues in the past 12 months and that over half had to wait between one and five days for an engineer. What’s more a third of us were charged £150 or more for the call-out. Sound familiar?
So it’s not surprising that, according to their research, 17 per cent of us have attempted to repair our boiler ourselves. Frankly, I would suggest that no one has a go themselves.
However, there are some things we can do to reduce the need for an expensive emergency call-out, including, getting an annual boiler service.
It’s a good idea to make sure the system pressure stays green, or between 1 and 2 bars on the dial. This will ensure that your boiler doesn’t overheat.
And make sure the flue exhaust is clear. Check it’s not covered by anything like leaves.
Also, check the batteries in your smart meter. ‘We get a lot of call-outs from customers with wireless programmable room thermostats that have stopped working,’ says Tyrone Ekrem, founder of Fair Fix. ‘It’s nearly always the batteries.’
If you suspect your boiler is on its last legs, now is a good time to have it replaced. Compare prices at moneysupermarket.com and uswitch.com, then see if you can get a discount to get it installed. Find a local plumber via bark.com.
Embrace pink for free Barbie movie tickets
Margot Robbie stars in Barbie
Vue cinemas at Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City are giving away more than 200 tickets for the Barbie film this weekend.
To enter, dress up in your pinkest Barbiecore (or Kencore) outfit and make your way to the service desk at either shopping centre up to 7.30pm today to claim your free tickets. Be quick though as it’s first come first served!
If you have a Hungry Horse pub near you, you could get a free bacon, sausage or Quorn butty this weekend. To get your free breakfast, you’ll need to go to your local Hungry Horse between 9am and 10am on July 22 or 23. To find your nearest go to hungryhorse.co.uk/find-us.
Fancy a free cold brew coffee? If you are visiting London any time until July 28 you could potentially get a free drink hand delivered by blankstreet.com. Blank Street will also have a cold brew cart giving away free coffees at different locations in the capital. Choose from traditional Cold Brew, clean-cut Cortado Cold Brew, or the more treacle-like Shaken Brown Sugar Cold Brew. For a chance of a freebie call 020 8058 8000.
The Sweet Hamper Company (sweethampercompany.co.uk) does lovely hamper gifts stuffed with all sorts of sweets, whether you’d prefer a UK favourite such as the Huge Cadbury’s Chocolate Hamper, the American Sweet and Chocolate Hamper, or a delicious throwback like the Huge 1960s Retro Sweet Jar. You can get 15 per cent off with my special code, DAILYMAIL15, when you input it at the checkout.
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