Love a great cup of coffee in the mornings!

Hi everyone, my name is Jessie Goh and yes I am a coffee addict! Like any other coffee lover, I need a coffee in the morning or my day will never start. This addiction has followed me for the better part of my life and it would continue its journey with me throught life. That said, it is a very expensive addiction but I can’t help it! So, for over a year, I have limited myself to only one cup of coffee a day. This coffee is usually homemade and does not cost $3.70 per cup.

To live life a little, I allow myself a little Saturday indulgence and I would spend $3.70 on a cup of coffee to kick start my day before a long work day. By following this plan, I have satisfied my coffee addiction but also saved a whole heap of money. The math is as follows:

$3.70 a cup (Soy flat white – I’m lactose intolerant)

5 times a week

50 weeks (I figured that there will probably be 2 weeks in the whole year when I don’t drink coffee due to various reasons)

Total Savings: $925!

That is about 9 pairs of gorgeous new shoes at $100 a pop….

Saving money does not have to be boring and it definitely doesn’t mean that you have to make sacrifices to the extreme. By cutting back a little, you will be amazed at the amount of savings you can make in your daily life.

There is always never enough money to do what you really want to!

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average weekly ordinary earnings (both private and public sector) is about $1180+. This makes it approximately $60K pre-tax (varies from case to case). After taking into account taxes and levies and etc, most people will only be left with $47K per annum in their pockets. This amount equates to around $900 a week. This measly $900 a week does not go very far especially when median house rental prices in Sydney is around $450 per week! This only really leaves $450 for you each week to pay for transport, eat, pay your bills and live.

Solutions:

Ideally, we would all love for money to just fall from the sky without having to put in any work. Well, that can happen but not overnight. Instead of scrimping and saving and not being able to live the life that you want, why not make use of the weekends or after work hours earning some extra cash? Here are two of my favourite sites that I have used successfully. The best part is that most of the work listed here can be performed from the comfort of your home in your PJs! Check them out.

Elance.com

Elance is a great place for finding work of all types. From web design, writing, telemarketing, data entry to web development. The process works like this:

1. Sign up for a free account as a service provider (The basic membership is free and allows you to bid up to 3 proposals).

2. Update your profile (look at other people’s profile if you are stuck for ideas).

3. Search for jobs or projects that interest you.

4. Bid for the project/s. Depending on the budget set by the employer, some projects require more “connects” (Elance uses this to call their tokens. You will need these tokens when you bid for projects) than others.

Tip: The more projects that you bid for, the higher the chance of actually being awarded at least one. You may decide to start out by offering your services for cheap in order to gain some positive feedback as a service provider. Also, the basic membership only provides 3 free “connects”. This means that you will need to upgrade your membership if you do bid for more than 3 projects.

Tip: When bidding, make sure you take into account the fees associated with Escrow. Elance charges a commission for the use of Escrow.

Guru.com

Guru is similar to Elance where it is a marketplace for employers and freelancers. The only main difference is the membership structure. Guru’s subscription fee varies according to the category that you choose. The Basic Membership is very restricting as compared to Elance’s basic membership. It is often more difficult finding a job to bid for in Guru because most employers will only allow you to bid if you have either the “Guru” or “Guru VENDOR” status. There are also commission fees involved in Guru.com when you have completed the project.

Besides Elance and Guru, it is also worth checking out iFreelance. This is a smaller website but works along the same objectives as Guru and Elance. In general, if you are just starting out, Elance will probably be the best place to start out.

Feel free to add your comments or share your stories on successful bids and proposals with everyone! Good Luck.

Spend Less Than You Earn!

You would think that this is common sense but with the availability of credit cards, line of credit, overdrafts and etc, many people forget how much of the money that is available actually belongs to them. By this I mean – money that you have earned and if you were to use it, you will not be penalised or charged an interest on it.

People spend their “future” money and ignore the need to budget and being careful with their money. Admittedly, budgeting, cashflow and what not are really boring and we would rather be out shopping than talking about these jargon. To be honest, no one has the time and energy to collect receipts and calculate how much we have spent. The news does not get any better when we find out that we have spent a chunk of our fortune on crap – down goes the morale; up goes the debt and around the vicious cycle we go again. Sounds familiar?

So, pick a day that you are feeling good about yourself and figure out how much you really have after taxes and fixed expenditure. Treat this as an easy guide to budgeting and all you need is the following:

1. Pen or pencil
2. A sheet of paper
3. Calculator
4. Rough approximation of the monthly fixed expenses that you incur.

This is a rough sketch I drew up for myself

Step 1:

Add up all your income in the left hand side column ($A)

Step 2:

Add up all your expenses in the right hand side column ($B)

Step 3:

Take $A – $B and this will give you either a positive or negative number.

Positive = amount of money that you can spend after paying off all your expenses.

Negative = Honey! You need to start getting smarter with your money and start budgeting. I suggest not spending on clothing and cut down on entertainment. These are the easiest way to increase your budget.

If you do not like to use the primitive method of pen and paper, you can utilise excel on your computer or start using tools such as ANZ Money Manager or SmartyPig to help you kick-start today.

Happy budgeting!

~Jess

This particular article outlines some very easy to start businesses. We are talking about businesses that are so easy to start that you can do it tomorrow if you really want to. The only thing that will be holding anyone back is discipline. Let’s face it, if you know that your goal is to M.M.M, then there is more to just selling on eBay. I will not bore you by explaining each business. Instead, I will include three more businesses that I think you can start this weekend!

1. “Your cakes are GREAT!”

Ever heard people compliment your baking skills? Why not start designing your brochure and order form today? Once you are done (which should only really take one day), start handing them out to everyone and anyone who you know and who cares to listen. Let everyone know that you are now selling your famous cupcakes.

2. Love to mow the lawn?

Do you find joy in lawn maintenance? If the answer is yes, you should advertise your service around your local area. Chances are you will come across people who do not share your passion for lawn mowing and are willing to pay you some money to tidy up their backyard.

3. If you like driving around…

Pizza delivery could well be your cup of tea. The remuneration varies from chain to chain. Some pay an hourly rate and per delivery. My partner was a pizza delivery boy for awhile. This was back during the days when we were starting our business and needed to supplement our incomes. It was pretty good when it rains and there were heaps of orders. People were generous enough to tip. The pizza joint was independently owned and they paid pretty good hourly rates and you receive a fee per delivery too.  On a good night with 4 hours work, you can potentially pick up about $100 with a good company. This is enough money for a pair of hot shoes or to pay off that credit card debt or even to save up for that vacation.

Do you moonlight anywhere or have thought of moonlighting or even starting your own business? Post a comment and share it with us. I will be delighted to hear from you.