A mum has opened up about how she is affording a magical Christmas – all thanks to side hustles like reviewing AI bots.
Laura Shahu managed to make over £4,600 last month.
While many people focus on doing surveys or reviewing games, the mum-of-two chose artificial intelligence as her cash cow of choice.
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The 29-year-old mum from Surrey is now sharing her tips for anyone who wants to make some extra dough ahead of the big day.
“There are sites that pay you to essentially review responses from AI chatbots and rate them on how accurate they are,” Laura, an accountant, told What’s The Jam.
“I have dipped in and out of side hustles a little over the years, but [I] started to take it seriously when I went on maternity leave as I wanted to help contribute financially at home.
“I wasn’t sure how much I could even make.
“I just felt like it would be a fun challenge to see how much I could actually [earn] ahead of the big day [Christmas Day].
“My best side hustle so far has been from doing cashback offers.
“I got really lucky on one and even won £1,000, so I made a total of £1,302.56 in just 30 minutes.
“I also quite enjoy training AI [by reviewing the bot’s responses] as it allows me to use my skills in my free time and work around my children.
“I am a qualified accountant and therefore they also pay extra for me to train AI in maths and accounting.
“The job is reviewing an AI chatbot’s answer to a question either in a general field or specific (such as maths) and you rate the answer and improve it to teach and correct the AI model to learn from its mistakes!”
Laura spends a few hours on her side hustles every day after her children, aged two and six months, go to bed.
She said: “The pay for training AI varies quite a bit as you can do it as a generalist (high school level skills) or a professional in something (which is what I do that pays at a higher end).
“It’s somewhere from like £12 to £47.50 an hour depending on the type of work you want to do.”
When asked which side hustles haven’t worked for her, the mum admitted that taking surveys has not been so profitable.
She said: “Most of them pay pennies for a considerable amount of effort.
“It was just a bit tedious and not worth it for more.
“Also selling photos as stock images [wasn’t effective] because none of my photos actually sold.”
Laura advises anyone looking to follow in her footsteps this Christmas to do their research.
She added: “Leave no stone unturned, as you never know what will work for you – and keep track of your money.
“Remember to protect yourself as well.
“Use a separate email address and phone number for side hustling.
“Have fun with it!”
Laura went viral on TikTok after sharing that she had made over £1,000 in just 30 minutes of side hustling.
One viewer wrote: “Ahhh as an unemployed pregnant mum of 2, I’m starting to worry about my lack of income! I need to really focus on side hustles!!”
A second person added: “Great thank you for sharing.”
When Laura was questioned about whether or not her income was real, she admitted she would not have believed it herself when she first started out.
She added: “I didn’t believe I’d be sat here saying this either, especially not when I first started maternity leave.
“The best advice I can give is to just start!”
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