How do you use your hosting income?

[Lizzie]

Hello Everyone, 

Do you ever wonder how other hosts use the income they make from hosting? Perhaps to travel the world or maybe getting that garden shed they have always wanted! 🙂

Tell us how you have benefited from hosting and we will feature some of the responses in the Host Newsletter. 

Looking forward to seeing your replies.

Lizzie

[Allison2]

Oh! I almost forgot - the first year I hosted, I used about $1.5k of my earnings for expensive medications for my old dog so she could enjoy her last summer (congenital heart failure & arthritis).

She had a lot of fun meeting all the new people in the house - especially the kids. It's kind of fitting, since moving my bedroom downstairs kicked off the whole idea of hosting on Airbnb. She couldn't do the stairs anymore - after making the move I thought "what should I do with 3 unused bedrooms upstairs?"

[Lizzie]

Hey @Allison2,

Great to hear your response. As @Jennifer100 said I love you have a travel pot. Have you been anywhere nice yet or plans for your next trip?

[Mike77]

Paying off the cost of building a treehouse on the property... 🙂 

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/7292887?checkin=&checkout=&guests=1&s=702WqyID

Mike

[Lizzie]

Great treehouse @Mike77. I would love to build my own treehouse, I'm just lacking in a few trees...maybe I should get planting! 🙂 

Is it all finished now? If so, what will your next project be, I wonder?

[Mike77]

We do have a vacant lot that only has big Ponderosa pines ... maybe a larger treehouse?  🙂 

Mike
AirBnB Treehouse for Rent
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/7292887

[Yamil1]

Starting this season (Summer goes from December up to March in Santa Catarina, southern Brazil) I will be giving 10% of the profits I make by renting my beach flat to different benemerit institutions in Florianopolis, city where my property is located.

[Aoi0]

We paid 1/3 to our cleaning lady because she works really hard.

Our place is the most clean airbnb in Tokyo even sometimes we have really messy guests.

She clean the shared area eveyday.

Every month we also hire more people to clean the showerroom and kitchen( even people only use it for boiling water)

We pay 1/3 for the expenses, breakfast, shampoo, body soap, water, eletricity, gas....etc..

We do not have much left, and we bouhgt the new bed sheets evey three months. and new beds every year.

I do not think we could become rich from this business, but we did meet lots of wonderful people from all over the world and met some terrible people, which we learn not to be like them.

[Ale0]

Hi:

First, we used the money to pay for work in the yard. Then school expences for the kids, in dicember we went on a trip to disney. and in April we went to Puerto Vallarta. We have some saved up and are planning to help pay for my son's collage he starts in august. 

[Paul0]

Airbnb income is simply one of my income streams. I'm all about diversified income. 🙂

Initially Airbnb's income enabled me to start my own business AND contribute to the running of our Apartment in a meaningful way. It's hard to guess where my life would be had I not been able to use that income to kick off my own business... probably back in a cubicle job less happy.

Cheers,

Paul

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[Connie-Jo-and-Leslie0]

Airbnb allowed me to easily convert my long term rentals into short term listings. This gave us 3-5 times the income earned previously. Of course that was passive income and Airbnb/short term is a full on business. We use the extra income to continue renovations on our own home, without dipping into a savings, now that my husband has retired. When renovations are complete we will use the $$$$ to pay off our primary home. We would have an entirely different lifestyle without this income.  We are so pleased that Airbnb has made it so easy. 

We do the bulk of the renovations on our home and rental property and are very slow as our house is always on the back burner vs. the Airbnb property. We just installed new central AC, water heater and insulation at $6k in the rental property. We will need another AC for the second unit soon. I love cleaning over there as there is no construction going on. Our home has 3 rooms left to do. 

We shall see what happens when we reach our goals, but have talked about converting the rentals back to long term as this is very passive income and allows us to travel more. Or perhaps we will sell it fully set-up to someone else who wants to Airbnb it! 

[Francesca18]

By the time I have paid cleaner or taken off my 2 hours pre visit clean and post clean and breakfast stuff there is really very little left..I have to pay tax as I already do a rent a room scheme in which I receive over 6.5k the tax free threshold so airbnb adds to taxable income. I also will have to pay tax on every square foot rented out when I come to sell the house so I worked out its only worth doing if I charge about 70-75 a night. What it helps me with is cash flow and survival. it stops me getting over my overdraft. end of story.

[Mary-Ann0]

Hi @Lizzie,

I'm still in my first year with Airbnb but I have been renting out my guest unit using two free sites that I know of for 13 years now. However the last few years (before Abnb) has had very slim pickins, bringing more and more not so desirable people, so I decided to try Abnb.

I am retired and live on fixed income so I greatly appreciate the income I get because what seniors have to live on now-a-days is not enough for anything other than everyday necessities.  I want to eventually make enough to upgrade my unit and do some needed repairs in the main house too.  But that has not happened yet even though I have raised my prices up now.

Right now I am just looking forward to my next season’s visitors because quite frankly my first couple of Abnb guests were not that wonderful and made me very little income.  I think times have changed too but after having said that - what I do with my hosting income is first pay for cleaning, window washing, carpet cleaning, yard maintenance, garden necessities and then the amenities that I offer; then if there is anything left I use it to make ends meet for my everyday living.

Hopefully someday soon I can write that I make a little money to travel on but that seems remotely unavailable to me right now at this point with so many hosts offering such low prices and not as many guests to go around. 

Mary Ann

[Dan80]

I love to travel, so I end up using my AirBnb income to stay at other AirBnber's places!

[Ashley-And-Chris0]

We're using our earnings to visit other hosts in other cities. Nashville next month and a two week tour along the PCH next year all through Airbnb. Look foward to a blog #PCHtourAirbnb

[Cindy13]

Saving for my 70 th bday bash