Mum explains how she cleared £10,000 through side-hustles – including dog sitting

1 month ago admin

Taking on a side hustle of looking after dogs helped mum-of-one Francesca Henry pay off a chunk of her £10,000 debt.

The 33-year-old, from Gloucestershire, managed to make £3,000 over the course of a year and a half – and used every penny of this to help her become debt-free.

Francesca had been working a part-time job but knew she needed more money coming in.

She told Mirror Money she fell "deep into Google searches" trying to find ways of making extra income which could work for both her and her daughter, and came across dog boarding.

Dog boarding is when someone's dog goes to stay in someone else's home and lives as part of their family for the time they are away,

Francesca, who discovered dog boarding in 2016, said: "At the time my daughter kept asking me for a dog of her own and I really couldn't afford it.

"When I was looking into dog boarding, I thought this is great!

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Francesca said her "favourite" part of dog boarding was walking the dogs as it really helped clear her head
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Image:
The Money Fox)

Overall, Francesca looked after 20 dogs in the year and a a half she was a dog boarder
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Image:
The Money Fox)

"I had a dog when I was younger so knew about them, my daughter would get to have a dog every now and then, so she would be happy, and because I got to give the dog back there weren't any extra costs to me."

Francesca signed up to be a dog boarder through the website Tailster and began to offer her services to dog owners.

She explained: "Basically, owners would put on the site that they had such a dog, like a labrador, and they were going away for these dates.

"Then you would submit a quote to them and they would pick which one they wanted to go with."

Francesca first advertised her rates as "really low" so she could pick up some jobs a little easier and it worked as once she got her first review, the ball really started to roll

She said: "I would usually look after the dogs over the weekend and sometimes I did it for a few days and even a whole week and most of the time it wasn't very uniform and there wasn't really a structure to it, if I had some mental space and some time to do it then I would."

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Once established, Francesca set her rate at £30 a day and would up it if she looked after more dogs, which she did a handful of times.

Francesca quickly made a good name for herself on the Tailster website and soon became the number one dog boarder in her area due to the positive reviews from her clients.

She said: "We just treated the dogs like family and I always sent the owners pictures of their dogs so they knew they were okay. because I know how anxious people get."

"To me, it was very laid back and me and my daughter really enjoyed it. I think the owners could see that I was very genuine and enjoying it and that's probably why they rated me so high compared to everyone else.

Over the year and a half Francesca was a dog boarder, she looked after around 20 different dogs and some she grew to know quite well as they became regular visitors to her home.

Francesca said her "favourite" part of the job was taking the dogs out for a walk.

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She added: "I've always been someone that if I go for a walk, or even like by myself or with someone with a dog it really clears my mind.

"I just felt so happy and at that time obviously, I was in debt. I was working a lot. I was just really, really focused on that.

"So I think it just took me out of that and made me feel so much more chill because I had to get out and walk twice a day. So it was really nice."

So how did Francesca clear the rest of her debt?

Alongside dog boarding, Francesca worked a lot to help reduce her debt.

She had two part-time jobs, one which covered her bills and the other she used entirely on the debt, and took on other side hustles such as being a mystery shopper to answering surveys which all helped it.

Francesca finally became debt-free in March 2017.

She now works part-time, still has a lot of different side hustles, and runs her own personal finance website The Money Fox.

She said: "When I was looking for ways to make money, I couldn't find anything that would help and I wanted to find a website which I could go to and it would tell me what to do.

"When I couldn't find that I thought, okay, I am going to set something up for myself so I can share all the things I've learnt, so if there is anyone else struggling, then I can be a resource which can help them."