|
|
Do you ever feel like you would like more money? That the money you have just does not go far enough. There are plenty of ways to have more money by spending your valuable time and putting in work to get more money. However there are some ways to seem like you have more money without working so hard for it.
What are you spending your money on?
First take a look at the areas that you are speding that hard earned money. Are they areas that are adding value to your live, what do you gain by spending money in these areas.
Of course some areas like rent, food, electricity and heating may be important areas to you, and some of them you cannot change. Without putting in a big uprooting effort, but some of them you may be able to.
There might be other areas that seem important because you spend money in them every day but maybe they are not as important as you thought. For example Coffee, Movies, going out ect.
What areas can you cut back?
So take a look at the areas that you spend money in. Can you be absolutely certain that spending money in every one of those areas is exactly what you want to be doing.
Maybe you enjoy cooking but just could not be bothered. Well have you thought that rather then eating out at that $30/ head resturant 3 or 4 nights a week, you could prepare a quick meal (maybe stirfry or spagetti or something) at home for a fraction of that price. If you are by yourself you can turn that $30 a night into $10.
On the other note how many coffee’s do you buy each day. One on the way to work, one at lunch time and one on the way home. Well it can be super easy to save some money here and just drop one, on the way home, it will save you money and save you time in the line.
What about the movies, yeah it is nice to go and see the movies on the big screen, but this can be quite pricey. Why not wait until it is out on DVD and rent it for a quarter the price from the rental store.
There are plenty of other areas that you can apply this thinking to and save some of the money that you have spent your valuable time earning. You really do want this money to go the furthest it possible can and spending it on so many forgettable experiences does not really provide the best value.
What does this equate to?
If much of the above has any kind of noteworthy impact on you, and making you go yeah that sounds familiar. Just think of it like this, if you can cut like the above out it will give you probably an extra $100-$150 a week. How hard is it to go and generate that additional income when you could just change some of your spending habits.
You may not come out this great but every dollar that you save and don’t spend is an extra dollar you have towards your future dreams.
- IM Legal Audit Course with Disclaimers and Videos Our complete legal course will teach about proper licenses, Business Policies, Disclaimers:the right ones for you, the Federal regulations and more.There are over 10 videos, disclaimers, Rules and regulations and lots of bonuses to keep you legal.
This is slightly off topic as it does not enitrely work with the Double To A Million Challenge, however I thought that it might an appropriate place to post this. As in a ways it is an idea on how to save money and make extra money available to you.
When it comes to saving money it does not always have to be about giving something up to save that money. It just depends on much you need to save money and how much you are willing to change to save that money. The specific thing that I am going to look at is a daily coffee. Do you really know how much this costs you?
What is the true price of a cup of Coffee?
So I am just going to work with the menu that is at the table right in front of me. Which is for a local coffee shop, when I open the menu the price of a Cafe Latte is $4.30 (I am in Australia so local price and currency). This is the price at a Franchise chain of coffee stores in Australia. Will it surprise you if I say this is not the full price that you pay for coffee (and I don’t mean sales tax, in Australia that is included in the price)
The coffee shop where I can buy this Cafe Latte for $4.30 is 9km from my home. So to go and sit down and have a Cafe Latte is a total of 18km driving. This is where it gets interesting. If I was to go with the allowable claim per kilometer by the Tax Department, I would be looking at 74cents per KM, or $13.32 is the overall cost I could claim if this was a business trip. I thought this maybe going a little far though. For my car it costs about 10cents per KM in fuel, or $1.80 for this trip. Which now makes this Cafe Latte come in at $6.10.
The next thing is time, to make this drive (not to enjoy the Cafe Latte as that is going to be the same whereever you go). It takes me about 15 minutes to drive this 9km, due to traffic lights and finding a parking spot, ect. So this is a total of 30 minutes. If I am at work I get paid around $22 an hour. So this adds another $11 to the cost in lost productive time. Keep in mind though that this figure could be a lot higher, depending on what you earn and especially if you are actually taking away from working time to make this drive. So Now the $4.30 Cafe Latte is costing $17.10 in product, transportation and los productive time.
Now I wonder if I have actually forgotten anything in this. Well I hope not, otherwise this simple Cafe Latte may end up costing us over $20…. The good thing is that I do actually get two each day when I do go and it does not cost me anything more then this.
How to Save on this cost…
Now all is not lost of course there is plenty of ways that it is possible to save on this cost, and I am going to go over the specific’s as well as the general so you might be able to apply it to your daily cup as well.
The cost of the Cafe Latte, is one of the first things that you can work on. The good thing is that I don’t mean you need to barter and trade with the cafe owner to get his price down. But you can look at other options in the area. As luck would have it I found a Coffee Shop of the same chain closer to home and the price for their Cafe Latte is just $4.10, so here is a 20 cent saving straight away. Also another local cafe offers a Cafe Latte for $4.00, I stick with the chain store though because I have a daily Buy one get one free offer.
Having found the chain store that is closer to home also saves me on driving distance, rather then driving 9KM each direction I now drive just 3KM in total. Which saves me $1.50 in fuel per day, plus the other wear and tear on my car. So far I have saved a total of $1.70.
The biggest saving though is in gaining more productive time, through not having to drive so far. I still lose some time to having to find a parking spot, however not quite as bad. Overall I may spend about 10 minutes driving and parking. This equates to a cost in lost productive time of just $4, rather then $11. So here is another saving of $7, which brings the total saving overall to $8.70
So what does the Cafe Latte cost now.
Looking at the three costs now, the price of having a Cafe Latte does come down somewhat. It started out for me at $17.10 each day. Now with the price at $4.10 + 30cents for fuel and $4.00 in lost productive time, gives a total price of $8.40 a total saving of $8.70, which is less then half the original cost.
Now while I do go to the chain coffee shop because I get buy one get one free each day, even if there was not one closer to home. I could save still by visiting the other coffee shop i mentioned before. Just not quite as much. I would be looking at $8.00 for two Cafe Latte + 30cents for fuel + $4 in lost productive time. Which comes in at $12.30, this would still give me a saving of $4.80.
Small amount day to day but when you look at it over the legnth of a year it can really add up, quite considerably. The first saving of 20 cents each day on the Cafe Latte itself over the period of a year adds up to $73.00, which could pay for a nice lunch or dinner out with your partner.
When it comes to saving $1.50 on fuel each day you are looking at almost $550.00 per year. That is seven full tanks of fuel in my car. But more importantly that is 5,500 KM less that you are driving, less wear on your tyres, brake pads, lower KM on your vehicle odometer, and less frequently needing a service.
The most important part for me though is the time saving, where I am not actually in the car driving and/or looking for a car park. This equates to over 120 hours per year. 20 minutes may not seem like a lot each day, but when you put it in a time frame over a year it is the same as three full 40 hours work weeks.
So the choice is yours, it just depends how much you are wanting to save. If you want to save just some of the money you are spending, then follow the above, but the above makes for an even more positive outcome if you were to choose to do away with the coffee all together.
- WP Coupon Generator (JVZoo Contest Special) WP Coupon Generator creates coupons in any page, post, or widget to be able to print or direct to a webpage offer.
It has been quite some time since I made it here to update just how the progress is going. Which to be quite honest has not been intentional. However at the same time I have not really been putting any direct effort into the project either. I just wanted to take a little time to explain why and maybe through this update understand better myself and when I may get back regular updates.
Where Exactly Am I
Right at this moment the project is still generating a little bit of income. In the form of interest on the money in the bank account. This only really amounts to a few dollars a month. This currently places the total for the project atthe moment at $852.95. This is an increase of $28.90 since my last update, which was in March this year. This places me pretty well into Step 15, with just under $150 to go until I actually achieve this step.
However at this point all of the income into the project is entirely 100% passive, I have to do nothing to gain this except leave the money int he bank account that it is in. This however is not really the best way to get to $1 million dollars, although it will work eventually, it is going to take an awfully long time.
Why Nothing Happening
To be totally honest, the project at this point is not generating enough interest for me. While the whole concept is very interesting, and I like the idea of what the project does teach you and what you may be able to learn through the project. I just cannot build the excitement for it.
A lot of the things that I have done for this project over the past couple of years have not really been pre meditated for the project. They just sort of happened and I did just attribute them to the project. The different things that I have specifically done for the project have generally not had the success that I was hoping for. Things like website advertising while it has made pennies here and there, it has not actually paid out anything to credit to the project.
There are probably other things that I could attribute to the project over time as well, however for some reason it just doesnt seem interesting to do so. Where I might gain $2 here or $3 there to me it just doesnt make sense to track such small amounts and actually transfer the money around to keep it correct in the right account. I guess to some degree this is ignoring one of the key parts of the project, being happy with the small bits and pieces before graduating to the big things. I just feel that while this may be the case, it does not actually improve any ones understanding of anything.
Future Efforts
Irrelevant of what I have said though I am not entirely giving up on the project. It will still be something that is here ticking over, even if that is just a few dollars a month from Interest credits in the bank. Direct future efforts for the project will be created if and when I feel that it is something worth doing for the project.
I will continue doing anything that I would ordinarily do and at some point may choose to discuss it here and if it does generate money will add it to the tally here. I do really want things to work out for this however I do also want to ensure that what I am shareing is actually worth your while reading about.
Open To Suggestions
As I am sort of lost at the moment in the thought of how or when I will continue with the project I am open to some ideas if anyone wants to share anything to help me get the motivation back. Or even if anyone has any ideas on what could be causing the loss of interest in the project. Actually it would be even better if anyone else who is under taking a similar project and who had experienced a similar situation along the way would like to share how they overcame this stage.
Wow, i had not realized just how long it had been since I updated the project here. It has been almost 8 months in fact if i worked it out correctly. Really it is nothing more then just being a little lazy that I have not updated, because there have been some things going on that have added to my tally for the project.
Since my last update where my tally was at $536.45. I have grown this to $824.05, which is quite substantial considering where I am at. Unfortunately I cannot be very specific in what has contributed as when i have transferred the money to my account for this project i put really descriptive terms like stuff as the comment. So at this point all I know is where some of it come from.
- Bank Interest – This come in at just under $20 since the last update. While I am aware of the fact that bank interest is not the best way in the world to make money due to the low rates and inflation combined it is still a valid way. And adding almost $20 without even having to touch anything is not bad at all.
- Some of you may remember quite a while back I mentioned buying some things to sell on consignment in a shop, well over Christmas that money came through, all in all about $200. This was kind of less then I expected but that is what i got above the cost of the goods. So not a bad little investment, except that it just took a little longer then expected to come through.
- Still while not specifically recording it, I know that I made quite a number of finds, lots of 5 cent coins and a few other silver coins. Also every so often a $1 or $2 coin turns up as well. Probably all in all less then $10 but it is becoming a smaller and smaller part of my project.
- One other little side project that I make the odd sale on is domain names, I have a reseller account but you have to do the registrations manually, so it is really only for people i know or work with. However it just became a little more profitable with a drop in the wholesale price, so I added about $18 with a sale in February.
I have also added a new website to my group of sites. All up it cost me $2 to setup, buying a .info domain name, and making use of the hosting account that I already have. The site is www.stevepavlinapodcast.info and it is a site that will eventually contain transcripts for all the podcasts which were created by Steve Pavlina. To date still to record first income, however for a site that I have only had online for a little over a month it is getting reasonable number of visitors. In the near future I will be adding another site, however not sure on any of the details of this at the moment, so will need to get back to you this.
Anyway Even though I have not been keeping the blog up to date I just wanted to let you know that I am still keeping the project going, and You can keep watching for more updates in the near future. Currently on Step 14 I will be working to get things over the Step 15 mark very soon, just $175 or so to go, which will have me sitting at the $1000 mark.
- WP Coupon Generator (JVZoo Contest Special) WP Coupon Generator creates coupons in any page, post, or widget to be able to print or direct to a webpage offer.
Well due to a little turn of good fortune, it seems I have been able to complete step 14 with a nice little addition.
TV’s and audio equipment and such is far from what I know best, even my knowledge of computer is not anywhere near as good as it used to be. Mainly due to the ever ongoing improvements in technology, while I could figure it out if I needed to at this point I honestly cannot find any reasons why I need to.
While this is the case over the years people I have known have seen that I seem to use technology a lot, and what this has done has converted into a lot of people asking me about technology. Even though my interest used to be solely focused on computers, since I have put this behind me just the fact that I had an interest in computers seems to translate into an ability to help out with any technology. Which really is not a problem for me, as long as I don’t have to make something that is really broken work again, I don’t mind to much.
So Monday just sitting having my daily dose of hot chocolate, and talking with a friend at the next table, and he asks me about getting his new TV set up and a Digital Set-top box for an old one. Long story short I was able to help him out and he compensated me for doing so. Since this type of work is something that I have never really done before it is really the exact sort of personal service work which I want to be including in this project.
So as it turns out This adds another $75.00 to my project, which brings me to a grand total of $536.85, which completes step 14 – $256.00 – $500.00. This is also the total of where I am at with my few recent finds, and really launches me into the first of the bigger steps where a bunch of small things is going to take a lot of time to convert into a completed step. Which means it is about time that I put some thought into just what I need to do to really grow my project and start to add some good income to the project, just like the addition that I have made today.
- IM Legal Audit Course with Disclaimers and Videos Our complete legal course will teach about proper licenses, Business Policies, Disclaimers:the right ones for you, the Federal regulations and more.There are over 10 videos, disclaimers, Rules and regulations and lots of bonuses to keep you legal.
While financially finding money on the ground is far from a huge income activity. This being the case I have still managed to add 10percent of the money I have in my project at the moment, through finding coins and and notes.
Over the past week or two though I have noticed something increasing happening. I have come against the problem of finding coins however they are in a place where it is unreasonable that I would be able to actually get them. The first was a $1 coin on the ground behind a window, which I was unable to get into the room where this was. The second was a 10 cent piece on the ground behind the counter of a shop.
While I have been able to see this coins but not physically get them for the project, I have kept the thought in my mind that the coin has still been found. That is then kind of what happened. Just two days after seeing the inaccessible $1 coin, I found a $1 coin on the ground. Where previously $1 coins have been not so comon in my finds to see two in two days is something a little different.
Then on Saturday when I saw the 10 cent coin that was not accessible, I just kept the same thought, that I had found it. I went on to find a total of four coins at three different times on Saturday. the first was a 10 cent coins within minutes of seeing the one that i could not get to. The next was about an hour later, and finally later that night, I found a 50 cent coin and 5 cent coin right next to each other.
While I have previously begun to think that it is a little crazy to continue talking about small amounts of money, there is one thing that I am always going to keep working on, and that is that money is money no matter how small it all adds up at the end of the day, and while it may not make me a Million Dollar it sure will be part of the process.
So this adds another $1.75 to the money in the project, and with the interest which I earned at the end of June as well, which was $1.86, I am moving slowly still. There are a number of ideas in my head, and hopefully I can begin to get some of these working in the neat future.
It would seem that one of the plans which I outlined in the last update is not moving as well as I would have hoped that it would. I was looking at setting up a membership site to share quite a lot of quality products, which I am sure many of you could have used. It seems that there have been some problems I am coming up against which I did not expect initially, and really it has only come up as part of finding out situations others have come up against.
While this is not going to stop me overall, it is going to slow the progress down a little while I work out just what the position is, and if I can work around these obstacles. As usual though this is not the only thing that I am thinking about there are more and more ideas that I am thinking of almost on a daily basis which I am going to be working on when I can find the focus to actually have a direction to work in. This will hopefully not take to long and I will be able to announce some new projects soon.
As for finds and adding to the project I have made a total of 7 finds in the past month, 6 of these were 5 cent coins, all in separate finds, and four of them 4 days in a row. Along with a 10 cent coin. Also have added $1.86 in interest, at the end of May. Interest will be another contributor in a few days at the end of June, and hopefully will be adding a few more bits here and there over the next month.
I wanted to get in and get an update done. Although I could have left this until the end of the month to get in the interest for this month, and anything else that comes up this is not so much a monthly update, but an overall update for the project as a whole. A few small factoids for the project along with some of the failures from the project as well.
To set the scene, I started this project in April 2008, by finding a single 5 cent piece. At this point right now 27th May 2010 a little over 2 years, my project is at $454.91. While this may not seem like a large achievement and there is some of this that I would have earned or found anyway. It is interesting to track just what you can gain as extra or additional income from many different sources.
Firstly I will cover my finding of coins. I have made finds of another $4.35 in coins since my last update. Which seems to make this a part of the project which is only growing more and more. At this point I have added close to 10% of the money in the project by way of finding coins and notes. For a total of $42.85 in coins and notes that I have found.
The next area which while it has not added a lot to the project at this stage will very soon become one of the primary earners over the longer term is bank interest. At this point I have gained a little over $6 in interest for this project. The majority of this from interest earned directly on the money in the project. With a very small amount added as a don’t know what to do with it otherwise. The best part of this area is two fold. The first is that currently interest rates in Australia are either rising or sitting at the same level. The second part is even on $450ish dollars this is almost $2 a month, and will only grow as the money in the project grows.
While the successes are good to share there are also some things that have not really turned out how I expected. One main area of this is the area of developing websites for the project. At this stage I believe that I have mentioned and announced about 8 different websites for the project, and to date only 1 of this has made it very far at all. Being www.nofixedoffice.com. The other which included 6 .info sites, which the domain registration lapsed. Along with another video site I wanted to set up, but never got past the planning stage, all did not achieve or succeed.
Another announcement I made along the way which is still very much on the back burner was the idea of creating a $1000 day for a website, selling a product I created. While I still believe this to be potentially one of the fastest ways to generate an income online, it is still something I am working on. Although I have been game and yesterday announced the potential beginning of this again with a new membership site I am launching. This time I do believe the outcome will be different as I have more of the frame work there and ready, I have some of the products to go on the site ready, all that is needed is putting them together and getting it out there.
So as it stands right now is less then $50 away from achieving Step 15 at $500. I can only hope that making that next $500 will take less then 2 years, or this project is going to begin to drag on for quite some time. With the new site coming in a months time, and some other plans that I have though I see things speeding up quite a bit and can visualize the next few steps happening in fairly quick succession.
Well, today I have some exciting news for you all. It is a completely new part of this project. I don’t want to give away to many details today as much of the actual details are still to be confirmed however there are two aspects that I can tell you about.
What the new part of this project is, and what will be included in this new part of the project.
Firstly what I am going to be adding to this project is a membership site. A site that you can join for a small monthly fee (still to be determined, but will be easily achievable).
This leads to the second part I can share, what will be included in this site. A range of downloadable products, including e-books, audio and online video’s. The general topics of these products will cover wealth building, internet marketing, and a few other smaller topics.
Over the next few weeks, I will be revealing some of the products which will be available as part of the membership. As well as including information about how to find the site, pricing and other vital information. If you are watching you may even get to see some free previews of the content to come.
I am quite excited to get this underway, and expect to be releasing it to you around early July, however I do want to be sure that it is done right and that you will be getting something which is going to provide extensive value to you, so just keep an eye on the updates and I will be sure to let you know about any possible hold ups on the launch.
Joel
- IM Legal Audit Course with Disclaimers and Videos Our complete legal course will teach about proper licenses, Business Policies, Disclaimers:the right ones for you, the Federal regulations and more.There are over 10 videos, disclaimers, Rules and regulations and lots of bonuses to keep you legal.
April has been a bit of a slow month for my little project here. It seems that I have been spending a lot of time on work and not so much time looking at ways to add more income to the project. This is to some extent how it must be though at the moment, as having an fixed income in necessary to ensure that I have the money for the things I need to pay for to live. However with a range of reasons this has meant working a few more then the standard hours over the last few weeks. Once this current week is over though that should ease up for the most part I hope.
April though has in some ways been a month of many small gains in different area’s. The first and now one of the more consistent area’s I have gained a little income is interest on the bank account. This month it come in at $1.71, a little more then last month, but something that should continue to rise if only by small amounts at a time. At some point it could become the primary factor in moving me forward, however at the moment it will be just a little addition each month.
Additionally some more finds where made this month, actually cumulatively coming in at about $1, however were made in multiple small finds. Including a 50cent (previously mentioned) a 20 cent, a 10 cent a 4 five cent coins. None of these were found together, however three were found on consecutive days in a fairly similar area. For me this is not surprisingly one way that I will expect to continue to add to this project, it is maybe many small additions to the project, however this is I believe one of the things that this project is here to teach me, that no matter how small, everything counts.
Finally there is more been added to the money that will be coming eventually from advertising, only a small amount, and while I wont share exactly how much for the month, if I was adding it on, it would be this months biggest contributor. I believe that this is to some extent based on increased visitors to the websites that I am operating, and also maybe more closely matching ads to the content. Although the stats are not overly good and as such I cannot really tell much more then when and where the clicks come from by channel. Oh well, as long as it keeps tracking how it has been all will be good.
As for the coming month, that is an interesting idea. I do plan to release finally at least one product of my own. Exactly how this is going to work I can still not say for sure but, I will be releasing something within the month. I do have one product almost finished, however I am unsure if that will be the one that I release. Otherwise I will need to get a move on to get things finished. So keep watching for the release, and hopefully it will be something that can help you.
|
|
