As requested, here is an in depth guide to bank switching and opening bank accounts as a side-hustle

As requested, here is an in depth guide to bank switching and opening bank accounts as a side-hustle, because as a student I've made over £2,500 doing this and I'm telling you it is the easiest money you'll ever make. First of all, to debunk a common misconception that bank switching and opening bank accounts is a lot of hassle, a lot of faff. I know a lot of people can't be bothered, but you are leaving so much money on the table when you do that. It probably takes me 5 minutes in total of admin of time to switch banks or open a bank account. To me, it's probably the most money I'll ever make for the least amount of time. Who doesn't want more output for less input? So I discovered bank switching in my first year of uni. You can simply type up bank switch offers on Google or whatever, but I also sometimes use Martin Lewis's MoneySavingExpert website because he does all things money in the UK and he regularly updates when there are the latest switch offers available. I will also say that I opened as many student accounts as possible. So if you are a student, and you do have to be a student because it asks you to input your UCAS code, you can also do that and make maybe an extra thousand because they were also offering maybe £100 per bank account. I think the other myth that people talk about with bank switching is that you need to have loads of accounts open at once and people are worried that that will get overwhelming. But that was not the case. What I did was I held my main bank account, which I use Monzo. I really like Monzo. And I did not switch that. I did not change that. That will always be my bank account. That will always be the account that I get my salary paid into, the details that my friends have so they can send me money, and I'm keeping that as a constant. Instead, I opened a second bank account and what I would have was to have my direct debit attached to that. With these bank switches, there are usually a few little steps you have to complete before you get the money. And the money is usually £100 to £200 per switch. Sometimes they can also include other perks like £100 in Deliveroo vouchers or a free Railcard if you open the Santander student bank account. What I would do is I'd have this sort of dummy bank account, but I would have my direct debits attached. If you don't have any direct debits and you need to make some, I will go into that in a minute. What I would do with this dummy account was I would switch it to a bank. It could sometimes take a week for the payments to come through, maybe two, maybe a month, but for that amount of money for putting in so much little effort and time, I still think it's worth it. And once I got the payment from the bank switch offer, I would go to the next offer, and to the next offer, and to the next offer. So for the direct debits, if you don't have any regular payments or direct debits attached to your card. Here are some that I do instead. There are two savings apps, one called Plump, one called Money Box. They're decent anyway if you wanna use them as a savings app, but what you can do with them is create a savings rule and essentially set up a direct debit. I would set up a weekly direct debit with those for like one or £2. And the great thing about that is that you're sending money to yourself, so you're not losing any money with those two direct debits. If in some rare cases you need a third direct debit, you can also set up one with this website called 30p direct debit which is essentially designed for this for bank switching and it's a website that allows you to literally set up a direct debit of 30p. That's your three direct debit sorted if you need them. Some bank switches don't even require you to have them. Like I'm pretty sure Natwest never requires you to have any sort of direct debit, so some of them are a bit simpler than others. Some of them also require you to transfer in £1,000 or maybe even more. This is the other thing that puts people off, but actually there is a little loophole to this. You need your total deposit to be £1,000. So let's say, for example, you only have £100 to work with. You can send that into that account 10 times and overall that counts as £1,000 deposited. And the other things to look out for is some banks are in the same family. For example, Lloyds and Halifax, Nat West and Ulster Bank. So sometimes they have a rule where they won't let you get that offer twice from banks under the same umbrella. Although I will say that I got a £200 payment from all three under the umbrella of Nat West, which I think is Nat West, Ulster Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland. Can't confirm that they still do that. This was two years ago. But like I said, I got £600 just from those bank switches alone. And then when you factor in the student accounts I also opened with those banks, I've probably made £1,000 from that West group. I'm so sorry, Nat West group, if you're watching this. But when there's money on the table, you're gonna take it, and it's really helped. As for the actual switching process, there is something called the Current Account Switch Service. Every bank has it. It's so, so simple. All you need to do is put in the details of your old bank account and you will need your bank card number, so hold on to those cards when you open these accounts. But that's all you have to do and all your direct debits, any money in that account all get switched over. You literally just get to relax. The last thing you might be wondering is what happens when you've done them all. This is the position I'm pretty much in. I have pretty much covered every bank and there are a lot of them. Even less known names like Co-op Bank and TSB have some really good switch offers and I've made £100 from each of those. Some bank switches don't let you do it twice when they bring out their next offer, but some have a minimum waiting time. For example, some of them will say in their terms and conditions you can actually get this offer again as long as you haven't had one in the last like three years. Some of them also have a loophole where you can do it again with a joint account and then Nationwide has this one. So if you have already got their switch offer, you can get it twice if you're opening a joint account instead with someone else who also hasn't had it with a joint account. I hope all of this makes sense and this inspires you to go and look into bank switching because it's a very easy way to make some extra money and that is really help me as a student growing her finances and starting to invest. And if you're interested in more money, personal finances, investing, building wealth, and just good habits in your 20s, then follow along for more.