How you can boost your income by £8,000 a year

There is an increasing trend spreading across the UK whereby we now rent much more of the things we use rather than buying them outright. From our phones, our cars, our homes and even the things within them, the freedom that renting rather than buying provides is resonating with the new generation of consumer – and even a lot of the older generations too.

With such a propensity to rent, we looked at the potential income that could be sitting dormant within your home and how much you could stand to make by renting out just two things – your spare room and your driveway.

Using data from our latest Room Rental Index, and from Yourparkingspace, we found that on average across the UK, you could bring home an additional £670 per month renting out the two – that is more than £8,000 a year!

The highest take home available is in London where the average room is currently renting for £783 a month, with a spare driveway also proving a profitable asset, bringing in £188 per month. That’s a total of £917 extra in your pocket every single month.

Cambridge is the second highest with a room renting for an average of £613 and a driveway renting for £120 on average for the month, bringing in an additional £733 per month between the two. Renting your spare room and driveway in Oxford could also bring in more than £700 a month.

Those in Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh, Bristol, Southampton, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Manchester, Leicester, Sheffield and Nottingham could also increase their income by more than £500 a month just by renting their spare room and driveway.

Even in Aberdeen, doing so could net an additional £383 a month, the lowest of all cities on the list but still a great deal better than a kick in the teeth.

The rental sector has changed dramatically thanks to the introduction of technology and the way we rent everything from films to cars is not only easier, but we have a great deal more variety at our fingertips. But while this ease in consumption can see us spending more money than we may have traditionally, it also enables us to make more money as well.

Renting a spare room and a driveway are now two of the most incredibly easy things you can do and while not everyone will have both going spare, we wanted to demonstrate the amount of money you could make from something that would otherwise sit their unused.

Even renting your driveway alone could bring in an additional couple of thousand a year and so making Generation Rent work in your favour is certainly worth a go.