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Found 4 entries.
One thing I have been doing recently (and of course, not posting very much here) has been to start getting together a small business plan to get myself a third income stream.
Currently I am working in a 40 hr salaried position which is of course my first and main income stream.
Secondly, I have a house up the coast which I am renting out. Even though it has been rented out for 4.5 years, I have battled through paying the extra interest and this year will (I think and hope) be the first year that renting it out will turn a profit. It’ll be small to start off with but hopefully progress as the years go on.
But something has been niggling me recently and I have decided that it was about time to start getting another income from somewhere else. After racking my brains, I have decided to go into business for myself and keep it as a part-time project which I can do in the evenings and weekends. I think I’m lucky that my day-job allows this since there are a number of others who also earn money in their non-(normal-)work time.
I won’t quite say what it is yet but it will tap into my IT knowledge and knowledge of systems around the world which I can also tap into. Suffice to say it will be a passive stream though that doesn’t mean it is without work, it just means that the income from it should be non-proportional to the time I put in.
ie. it is not my time I am selling, but a product independent of my time.
This is very important, especially for someone who still has a day job.
Labels: earning, selling, working
Inserted: 2010-05-08 10:47 (1 year, 9 months ago)
Over on Sweating the Big Stuff Daniel posted about Waiting for the Perfect Deal. It was something I could identify with mainly because in the past, when I wanted something I want it now!
As time as gone on however, I find myself easily able to resist buying certain things. I currently have a microwave in which the display doesn’t work. It’s interesting since I hadn’t owned the microwave from the beginning and only acquired it once the display was broken. As it turns out, it’s a complete pain to use. In fact, I have no idea how to turn the settings down so that it doesn’t cook on the “highest of the high, this will make iron melt“ setting.
It’s time for a new microwave I think.
But still, every single shop in New Zealand has had at least three different sales since Christmas. The traditional Boxing Day Sale, the Sale Between Christmas and New Year Sale (the one no-one knows what to name) and of course we’re just had the New Year Sales! It’s crazy.
As it turns out I have seen plenty of microwaves during this time. 40% off, 50% off and even 60% off. Plain and simple, I figure 50% off is about as much as you’ll get during the course of the year. Every now and again they have 30% or 40% sales but not usually 50% or 60%.
So why didn’t I buy a new microwave.
Well, hmm, hard to say really. Probably because Christmas is always an expensive season hence January is usually clawback month. Also because the old microwave actually still works, if you know how to treat it right.
But in all honesty, the real reason I didn’t buy one is because of the types on offer. They all have those dastardly display. All I want is one with two dials on the front, one for power and one for time. Why? Because these don’t fail. Buttons, displays, alarms, roasting things, weird door catches, they’ll all fail I tell you! My old microwave had two dials and it was awesome. Small, but awesome. It lasted years (though I had to get rid of it, fully working – long story).
Then finally today, I saw one. Two dials, $250 minus 40% so about $150! It looked the job. It was the perfect deal.
I didn’t buy it.
Maybe I will later in the year. Maybe when silly season is over and my bank account looks healthier. Maybe when my current microwave dies a little more and maybe when it’s on sale again for a bargain price. We’ll see. Overall, I won’t worry too much and my one overriding reason for this is, it’ll be on sale again sometime later.
What have you been putting off buying for ages and why?
Labels: spending
Inserted: 2010-01-06 09:08 (2 years, 1 month ago)
I stumbled across a post over on Mighty Bargain Hunter – What is Financial Retirement? and I couldn’t help but agree with it.
Especially the following quote:
Retirement is about Money, not Age
I just wanted to write a quick post on this, since this says in a few words what I’ve been saying my plan was for a while.
I have variously described my plan as “Retiring at 40 but not actually stopping work“. That sounds ok but it’s a little confusing. Then I changed to something more like “Well, not actually retiring, but just not working for someone else.” It turns out all of these things are true.
Watching the hundreds of blog posts about New Year Resolution’s (which I don’t do), I have come to think of these things as “Goals for this Year“. I think that describes best what most people actually do.
Instead, I will make a goal now for six years time. I just turned 34 so in 6 years from now (I’ll give myself plus or minus 6 months) I plan to retire :)
But to do that I need goals. This is a brave decision of mine but I am now planning on setting out the goals now for what I need to have achieved in six years time. The added bonus with these goals is so that I can set other smaller goals along the way.
To make sure my goals are SMART, here’s what they are defined as (along with numerous other variations):
By the way, I also plan on reviewing these goals every year since otherwise they may be horrendously out of date in a few years time (either due to health, money, technology advances or aliens).
So let’s start.
Some clarifications necessary.
Ok, that’s a first stab. I’m not sure I have covered everything but I think those things are SMART.
What do you think? Are they realistic? Specific? Measurable? Any other suggestions for other goals I may need to consider?
Labels: retiring
Inserted: 2010-01-02 22:34 (2 years, 1 month ago)
Welcome to my new series of posts on the basics of Personal Finance. I know many other bloggers have done their own series, but it’s such a personal thing (no pun intended) that it’s good to go over it every now and again.
On that Wikipedia page, they certainly go some way to trying to define it in monetary terms. For example:
“Personal finance is the application of the principles of finance to the monetary decisions of an individual or family unit.”
For me though I find that Personal Finance is as much about a way of life than it is just about money. I’ll try and define it in terms of the way we live, rather than the fact that it’s about money.
Over on Twitter, I come across a good quote every now and again and this one can help us define Personal Finance too. From inexpensively:
“Frugality is all about changing the way you spend money, not changing the way you live!”
I do agree with this to the extent that you shouldn’t go without but I don’t think it says everything. In fact, I do think it is a way of life and whilst it shouldn’t force change on your life, it does affect it.
As I said earlier, it’s about a way of life. I think some of these points also sum it up very well, for me at least:
... but most importantly …
I know this has been a rather short intro on Personal Finance, but I hope it has been an interesting and slightly different perspective on the matter. Let me know in your comments what Personal Finance means to you.
Inserted: 2010-01-01 09:03 (2 years, 1 month ago)
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