How South African travel creators Josh and Ruthie Betts earned R1.19 million in 2024
Travelling couple, Josh and Ruthie Betts, of 'Life of Betts', have revealed that they made close to a million in a year as travel content creators.
Image: Instagram
A million a year. That’s how much you can earn as a travel content creator if you take your dreams seriously.
This insight comes from South African travel content creators Josh and Ruthie Betts, who are known for their popular travel page, "Life of Betts".
In their video titled “How much I made as a South African content creator in 2024”, they provided followers with a month-by-month breakdown of their earnings for the year.
According to the full-time digital creators, they made approximately R 1,190,829 from January to December when everything was tallied up.
Josh and Ruthie began travelling full-time at the end of 2019, with plans to explore the world.
However, their initial trip to Mauritius in February 2020 was interrupted by the Covid-19 lockdown, which ultimately led them to embrace a van life adventure in South Africa starting around 2021 after they were repatriated.
The couple have been travelling for four years in their self-built van, Ivy, exploring hidden gem destinations and reviewing both budget and luxury accommodations across the country.
The highest amount they earned in a month was R184,434 in June 2024, while the least they made was R46,933 in October of the same year.
“Was it more or less than you would have thought?” the duo questioned their followers.
Their travel page currently has 326,000 followers.
“We are so fortunate and have worked really hard for our dreams to become our reality!” the couple stated on their website.
The Betts' declaration comes as the earnings of digital creators have come into the spotlight, with the South African Revenue Service (SARS) providing clarity on how social media influencers will be taxed.
The Betts have confirmed that, as digital creators, they do indeed pay tax.
“It must be reiterated that it remains the social influencers’ legal obligation to declare all income received. Full voluntary disclosure is critical. No matter how social influencers are remunerated -whether with products, services or travel - all of these are deemed as income (ITA) and must be taxed accordingly,” stated SARS.