Magazine competitions

I am doing an experiment with those puzzle magazines with $xx,xxx worth of prizes to be one and with the “real life stories”. I think you can guess the ones I mean. I bought the 2 main ones and did the puzzles, filled in the entry form and posted it off. Now it’s a matter of waiting and seeing if I win anything.

In the meantime I have done some calculations. These magazines are $2.90 and $2.95. They come out weekly. If you bought it each week and entered every week it would cost you $304.20 for the magazines, about $10 for envelopes and another $57.20 for the stamps to post them.

I do know people who have won things from these magazines but your chances are slim. If you think about the millions of people entering these sorts of competitions it’s kind of like trying to win lotto. There are some awesome prizes like cars, whitegoods, large sums of cash, but a lot of the prizes seem to be useless to me. I could give them as presents or sell them, but I am hoping for a cash or big prize, along with everyone else. I really doubt I will win anything, but we’ll see.

The other interesting thing about these magazines is they will pay you cash for every aspect of the magazine if you send something in and they print it. Pictures of your kids, funny stories, money saving hints, real life stories/dramas etc... Up to $2,000 for a story actually.

So over the next little bit I am going to have a go. I am going to send in something for every part of the magazine and see if I get anything printed. I will have to sit and think for a bit, but I have a few good stories, some money saving hints and some cute kids pics, so that’s a good start.

I am going to have a look at all magazines and see what I can send in and get paid for then see what ones I actually get money from. Brilliant thing is with email it is easier to send them (and cheaper) and since most magazines are online, I can look up the competitions and story things for most of them without having to purchase the magazines.

Stayed tuned to see how I go!

A big goal

I am impatient and want a house now. I know I do not have the money, but it doesn’t stop me wanting a house any less. I look at homes all the time and just wish! I know how much I need and if my life depended on it I am sure I could find ways to make more money.

I know that I will achieve my goal by April 2015, but I feel like I am in a rut. I am doing things here and there to make money, but none of it is big money. I know it is hard with my husband’s shifts, but I also I know that I need to stop using that as an excuse. If you really want something you go after it.

As such I am going to set myself a big goal. I need about $55,000 to purchase a house here. I realised today though, that I do not need to buy my first house here. For less I could purchase a house or unit somewhere else. So that is what I am going to do. In 6 months I will have a property.

Obviously I need to step up my game but I am confident. I have that jewellery to sell; I have my book coming out soon. I will finish my e book and have that out soon. I am still doing haircuts and things for people. I have lots happening “soon” but not so much right now. Although I am selling online, it is not big money.

I have a market I will be doing in March which realistically is not that far away. I still need to develop my other website and finish off building the book website. I do have a lot on my plate which is probably why I have not been making substantial amounts of money yet. All my energy has been going into future income opportunities, which is good, but I need to do more for now.

Tips for selling books online

I sell books mainly on Fishpond I have found I get a higher price and I find the whole process easier. They charge the customer $4.99 postage on your behalf. They take care of the payment and you receive it plus the postage money within 14 days of receiving a sold email. One disadvantage of this system is they take 10% of the total price, including the postage, so you only really get $4.50 postage.
Here are my tips and what I do when looking for books to sell and when listing.
1.) Sell slim books. Ones that fit in A5 or A4 envelopes are best as they are the cheapest to post. If they do not fit in an envelope, try to get books that weigh less than 500g so they can fit in a prepaid satchel. Much more than this and it will cost you a lot to post, and often works out to not really be worth selling the book.
2.) Stick to certain genre’s. I have found bestsellers don’t really work because so many people are trying to off load them. Books on finance, self help and relationships I have found sell the best.
3.) Check op shops and garage sales for cheap books to relist. You can often get them for 50c - $1 and resell them for $15 or more.
4.) Keep the books you are selling separate from your own books. This way you wont accidently lend one you have listed and risk not getting it back.
5.) Have a separate account for book payments to go into to make it easier to track.
6.) Keep proper records. A spreadsheet listing the book, sale price, fees, postage and profit helps you know whether it is worth it for you or not.
There are a few disadvantages to selling with Fishpond. The long time it takes for them to pay you and they are rather hard to contact. I seem to do OK with selling through them so I will continue for now.

Home again.

I am back. We had a great time away and I did manage to make some money, so I am happy with that.

I am glad to be back though because now I can get stuck into selling my jewellery and other things online and focus on my website again.

I tried using a free website building program, but I didn’t really like it so it looks like I will be purchasing Dreamweaver next week when my trial period runs out. I really think it is the easiest programme to use and there are fantastic tutorials online to help with using it.

I have a few other things I will be purchasing from Adobe at the same time so I will be looking at their packs which seem to be about $1700USD. There goes my money again! Hopefully I will be able to sell a few things between now and then so it won’t feel like such a hit when I do buy it.

My current total is $2400. I have some haircuts booked in tomorrow and a few things on the weekend which I will add once I have done them. I sold another book as well which I will get $8 for. I know huge profit! I got it for $1, so not a bad profit, but it does seem like a small amount. Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to post an article about what I do to sell books online and the tips I have.

Off to Sydney

I’m going to Sydney tonight. Part of me wants to go the other part doesn’t. We will be gone for a week and I am hoping it will be good.

I am hoping to make some jewellery and Tupperware sales whilst we are there. If I am lucky I will get to do a few haircuts as well to boost my money.

I have a free day today. My mum has my daughters. I have been trying to use the time to do my website but I feel like it is beyond me. I am not very computer savvy and I am finding it quite hard. I’m sure I’ll get it.

I have some haircuts booked in for when I get back and I will be listing things on eBay when we get back too. I have decided to go through our Tupperware cupboard and sell the things we don’t use. There are not a lot of things, but every little bit helps.

I have been working on my e book too and hope to have that finished in the next 2 weeks. If I am lucky I will get a day to myself whilst we are away and will be able to work. The week in Sydney is not a holiday so it shouldn’t be a problem.

I have a few other things I am looking at possibly doing, but I will let you know more later.

Oh so busy

I have done pretty well this week.

This week I went to the second hand shop with some of the money from one of the books I sold the other week. I bought more books to list and sell and I have sold 6 this week. Once I get paid for hem I will add them to my total. It is about $100 worth.

I have started my website. I have a lot of work to do, but now I know how I am supposed to do it, which is a HUGE step forward. My new publisher has started work on my book and I am hoping everything goes smoothly this time.

I have decided to put the biscuit idea on hold until my book is out and websites are done. I have so much going on that I just decided doing that would be too much.

I have started getting my jewellery ready to sell and will be listing it soon. I am away next week and didn’t want anything selling whilst I was gone, as I would be unable to send it. I am getting more interest in it which is good.

So everything is on track. As usual I have done haircuts. That is where I make my money from week to week. I have a few new Tupperware orders too, though they won’t be going in just yet.

I have started work on an e-book as well. So it’s all systems go here.

The book is going ahead!

I am so nervous and excited. The new publisher I chose has accepted my submission, I just need to make a few little changes and send it back. If all goes well it will be out by April. I am hoping that since my husband is working tonight, I might be able to get my kids to be and work on it.

I have started to play around a bit with my site ideas and will be doing more on Thursday.

I am in the process of planning a sort of jewellery party for next week with my mother in law in Sydney. It will be like a showing. I don’t want people to feel pressured into buying. I only want them to buy something if they really like it, not so “the host gets a bonus”, coz she will get something regardless.

I am going to have to come up with $1800 pretty quick. The Adobe pack I want is about that much and I will be able to do my website and other things really well with it.

I am so glad I am finally getting more support to do all this from my husband. He has been fairly negative at the start, but in the last few weeks he has realised how much I want this and is surprised by how many people are reading this, so thank you everyone for supporting me. It is very motivating and I truly hope you all get good value from it.

I will be talking to some people this week about my biscuit idea. My kitchen is not yet, but my mothers is up the road and I will find out opinions on this idea before I do too much. I am most likely going to go on Wednesday.

So everything is going well. As usual I have done more haircuts and colours and things to earn a bit. That is my consistent money, the hairdressing. I have a few regular clients, but I don’t think I can do many more. My wrist has been sore a few times now. Hence the need to look for other things that would be regular such as the biscuits.

Finding more time

Over the last few days I have been reading a lot of articles about getting back to basics and how we don’t need so many things in our lives. It got me thinking about how much time we waste on things we don’t need.

1.) We go to work to earn money to buy the things
2.) We spend time looking for, purchasing and taking home the things
3.) We spend time finding somewhere to put it, cleaning it, moving it around, storing it etc...
4.) Then finally we spend time getting rid of it, either by trying to sell it to regain some of the lost money or by just taking it to the tip or op shop.
See that? That is A LOT of wasted time for something you didn’t really need and probably didn’t want. I am not saying this goes for everything, but it does go for a fair amount of things we have/buy.

Considering what most of us want more of is time, why do we waste so much of it?

If we break those 4 things down further it can get quite scary how much we actually pay for stuff.

1.) We go to work to earn money to buy the things.
In my post about your real wage, which you can read here I spoke about working out your real hourly income. It was a little scary. I will be using the basis from that post that my real wage was $10 hr (rounded up) for the rest of these calculations. Say you want to buy a kitchen appliance, you know a hot dog maker, food processor, pie maker or something.

2.) We spend time looking for, purchasing and taking home the thing (in this example, the kitchen appliance).
You might spend an hour researching reviews and things online, 20 – 30 minutes to get to the store and park. Another hour in the shops, looking for, trying and buying the thing you want, then another 20 – 30 mins home. So all up that is up to 3 hours you have just spent getting this item. If the appliance cost $100, you already spent 10 hours working to get it. But in actual fact you just spent 3 hours looking for and purchasing it, so it has cost you $130 and 13 hours!

3.) We spend time finding somewhere to put it, cleaning it, moving it around, storing it etc...
So you get it home, unpack it and find somewhere for it to live. You probably use it this week because it is new and exciting. A few weeks later, it’s not really getting used, so gets moved to a cupboard. Later, you want to use that space for something else, so it gets moved again. Eventually it ends up in the garage or shed, taking up space. Each time you moved it you gave it a quick clean. In between moving it, it probably got put back in the kitchen for a few weeks, because “Oh, I might use that this week for xyz!” Uh huh. You don’t, it goes back into storage.

So you’ve wasted a few more hours just moving the appliance around. Let’s be kind and say it was just 2 hours in total, because it doesn’t really take that long to put something in a cupboard, but it can take a while if you decide to de-clutter that cupboard first, then again later after the item has been stored, then again when you de-clutter the garage after putting it in there, but for our purposes, it was only 2 hours. That’s another $20, so your appliance has now cost you $160 and 16 hours.

4.) Then finally we spend time getting rid of it, either by trying to sell it to regain some of the lost money or by just taking it to the tip or op shop.
So by now, your appliance has cost you $160, even though it’s not worth that much. You think “If I list it on eBay/newspaper classifieds/have a garage sale I can get $20 back”. So you list it. You take the pictures, see how much it is going for on eBay, write the description and list it. Then spend the week answering questions about it, finally selling it for $20 if you’re lucky. You then get to arrange a time and wait around for them to pick it up or go to the post office and post it. Then write feedback for them. All up that process probably takes 1 – 2 hours, plus the fees they charge to list, pay by PayPal and final selling fee, so you’re probably looking at having got $15 for it, after the fees.

A garage sale would be an all day thing or newspaper classifieds would cost a few dollars, then take time for people to come look and maybe buy it.

Otherwise you de-clutter and take it to the second hand shop/list it on freecycle or take it to the tip. The tip means you have to pay to get rid of it!

So, say you spent 1 more hour getting rid of this item; you have wasted a total of 17 hours on this appliance. Now if you were lucky you did recoup $15, or 1.5hrs worth. Still, if you work 8 hours a day means you have just wasted 2 WHOLE working days on this thing you don’t use. No wonder we are all short on time!

The one minute millionaire

Last night I was very discouraged. DreamWeaver was not working for me so I could not work on my website. This really frustrated me as I was finally “in the mood” and had done some work already. It made me feel like I should not even bother. Sounds dumb I know but I feel like I have had a few setbacks and was beginning to wonder if it was worth it. I have had comments from people basically saying why am I trying, it won’t work etc... Which are rather disheartening.

So when it wasn’t working last night I decided to sit down and start reading The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth and was reinspired.

I have read a fair bit because I found it so interesting. The part that got me reading lots last night was where it was discussing on wings of a millionaire and it talks about a millionaire moment. This is the moment where you want to turn back (I’m not writing word for word here!). You should breathe and step forward.

This is how I was feeling last night. I wanted to turn back, give up, not bother. I am not saying my book and the website I was building is going to make me a millionaire, but it is something I have been working on and believe in, so why should I give up?

There is lots in The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth that I have been really enjoying. The Mountain range of wealth is one of them. It is basically 4 ways of investing
1.) Real estate
2.) The internet
3.)Business
4.) Investments (shares etc...)
You choose your mountain and go for it. It’s described better in the book, but I just like how easily this idea and many more are set out.

Another thing I love about this book is the way it is written. On the left hand side is all the factual info and on the right hand pages is a story about a lady investing. I love this because I prefer to just read the facts and skip the story. Since people learn in different ways I think this is a brilliant way to write a book.

The authors have another book, which I will be getting when I have finished this one, it’s called Cash in a Flash: Fast Money in Slow Times. If you have already read it, tell me what you think.

Selling Books

Yesterday I was inspired by the above site to clean out my books. I don’t remember which thread in the forum it was that I was reading but they were talking about selling their books which made me look at my book collection.

I love books and have a lot. Many more than I need and plenty I have never read. In about 10 minutes I located 10 books I could sell and listed them. That was in 1 of my bookshelves. I have another bookshelf to look through yet. I am sure I could find 10 more.

As well as books I am going to go through my DVD collection. There are so many DVD’s we don’t watch and I would rather get the money for them. I will have to check them all with my husband though; he can be a little possessive with DVD’s.

I use Fishpond to sell my books. They charge $4.99 on my behalf for postage and they can stay on there until they sell. They also now have a facility to enable you to “go on holidays” and not have to relist everything, as you are expected to send books within 2 days.

Disadvantages of this site are that even though they charge $4.99, they add it to your sale price then remove their fee of 10%, meaning you are only getting $4.50 for postage. Also it takes up to 2 weeks to get your money. I have found that contacting them is near impossible a lot for the time, despite trying to reply to emails they send me, so sometimes it can be a very frustrating experience.

I have found I usually get a higher price on Fishpond than I do on eBay or similar. I almost have enough credit in my fishpond account from listing books and doing a few reviews to get a book for nothing.

One thing to remember is when you are listing your books ensure you click on pay into my bank account. When I first started listing, I missed that and it means you will only be able to spend what you make on Fishpond not wherever you like.

My first jewellery sale!

I really wasn’t expecting to earn much this time of year, due to Christmas and New Year’s, but things have been going ok for me. I have sold some of my jewellery. A small amount but it’s a start.

I was with a friend at a shopping centre, she is visiting from interstate and she wanted to look at some jewellery stores. I told her I have some and my sister in law does it wholesale and its better quality than the shops she was looking at. She asked if I had silver hoops, which I do and voila. My first sale.

I find it hard to mention what I do. Even this blog I haven’t really told people I see regularly about. Some of them know, most do not. I don’t know why. It always seems to get caught in my throat when people ask what I do. That is something I aim on working on this year, being confident enough to tell people about my blog, my jewellery, whatever I am doing. If I don’t tell people how will they know?

I am thinking once I reach the $1,000 I might invest in the shares I wish to buy and buy in $1,000 lots.

I have also been doing a huge clean out (again) and have found more things to sell online, despite me not having great successes of late. I figure without trying I won’t know and every little bit helps.

So this week my plans are

Clean up all the jewellery and photograph it to sell it.
Finish sorting and organising then list my pile of things to sell online.
List the rest of my things I have made on madeit. Hopefully I will make a sale on here one day!
Re evaluate all books I have listed online. Either list some elsewhere or take them to a 2nd hand book store.

2010 starting plan

For my challenge I have decided to do my goals slightly differently. I am going to break the year into quarters and set out what I will be doing for each quarter. I will post a new set of goals at the start of each quarter. I really don’t feel I can set out a guideline for the whole year, when I really don’t know how much money I will be earning.

Jan – March, the 1st quarter
1.) I will set up the website for my book
2.) I will publish my book
3.) I will sell all the jewellery I just bought
4.) I will continue to do haircuts and all I can to earn money
5.) I will do at least 2 blog posts a week
6.) Purchase some shares

April – June (This is a very rough idea and I will elaborate more when it comes time)
1.) I will set up my other website
2.) I will continue doing at least 2 blog posts a week
3.) Purchase more shares

I have worked out if I can make $69,000 this year I can pay 75% of a house deposit here plus purchase a house that would be positively geared elsewhere. I wont say where yet, but there are many areas I am looking at. It won’t be a big house, my investment property, but it doesn’t need to be. It needs to be paying for itself! This is quite a substantial sum, but I am hopeful and determined. I mean, to make $1,000,000 in my timeframe I need to be getting more that that a year.