Tag: online income NZ

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Online Business Passive Income Australia/NZ

Is Lis Lost Down Under?

Taranaki Egmont New Zealand
Mt Taranaki taken from New Plymouth

Life is for living has always been my motto – its one of the reasons I now own my own business rather than make obscene amounts of money as an IT contractor.  Being that miserable isn’t worth any amount of money. And sometimes going to work just seem too trivial to be bothered with. Unfortunately my online business has felt a bit like that over that last little while!

Taranaki Egmont New Zealand
Mt Taranaki taken from New Plymouth

Well life went from interesting to worse really. After I wrote that post (when we had sold the house, and my partner’s mum had died) – we found a new place we liked and bought it. There was gap of about a month between during which we stayed with friends – which was very nice and saved us a fortune. In the 4 weeks we stayed I managed to write-off our car by running  it into a bus – no serious damage to me but the back is only just about recovered from the whiplash now. My partner’s uncle died in Australia so he  had to fly over for that funeral (its only 4 hours flying from here though – slightly shorter than if we’d still been in Perth).

My partner then ended up having an angiogram (he’s OK – but it was seriously scary for the few days it took him to have it done).  It could have been stress (duh!) .That was rock bottom really.

Then stuff started improving:

  • We bought a new(er) car (NZ has a wonderful deal where we import used Japanese cars with low mileage so we are now driving a 2005 car for less than US$7000 (NZ$11,000) )
  • We took a long weekend and gave the car a run  to New Plymouth (I’d never been) and even got to see the mountain (unusual in winter).
  • We moved into our new house, we unpacked (mostly).  We bought new toys like a dryer and a digital video recorder thingy that will watch TV for you (yes I know about video tapes but I couldn’t be arsed connecting it really -and its really hard to buy tapes now). Eyeing up a new thin TV and some furniture to put it in but the credit card is over-tired this month LOL
moving house - too many boxes
Don't you hate unpacking!
  • We moved into our 5-year-old townhouse to discover that insulation really does work, even in Wellington, as the weather was seriously cold even for us, that we really did like the place (I am never sure once I’ve bought somewhere), that it’s super convenient , and we really don’t need to do much redecorating.  And the vegetable plot even seems to be growing non-weedy things (I understand they are called Brassicas).
bassicas in the garden
IThey are growing - so I hope they are Bassicas not triffids!

Stuff has been happening on the Internet Marketing front too – but I might save that for another post – and no it won’t be as long this time! Too main points though:

  • no – I haven’t given up on the Keyword Academy Case Study – and although I haven’t built anymore links my rankings are basically holding from my last update.
  • if anyone is still considering the The Keyword Academy – the price has dropped back down to $33/month (after the first month @ $1) – if you signed up under the $67 rate – check your email and follow the instructions to get your fees retroactively reduced.
  • I have decided to work smarter not harder – more details soon.
Categories
Online Business Passive Income Passive Income Australia/NZ

Passive Income Online – Where Has Lis Been?

Sorry I don’t usually do purely personal posts of Passive Income Online – so you may want to skip this one – unless you were wandering what happened.  Well first off from the online point of view – nothing bad has happened – in fact its looking like a record breaking month on my passive income goals – and I mean truly passive income because I have really done very little focused work this month.  We’ve had a month of it.

Sold House in Khandallah

First we finally sold our house in Khandallah (BTW ranking #2, #3 behind the major Real Estate Institute in the country – just wondering how much an Agent will want to pay for the site …). Got pretty much our price in a very slow flat market which was freaking out about the budget (now been and gone). We move out in a few weeks. Where to – who knows I’m  no fan of bridging finance – we may have to rent for a wile or we may win the tender that closes today – something will happen.

I don’t know how it is in your country – but in New Zealand the Internet has been a game-changer for selling your own home. The standard deal is you pay around 4% plus tax to an agent to “market” your property. They will probably charge you for advertising on top of that – but even at that rate you are looking at NZ$20k for our  place (US$14k). I paid for advertising too – it cost NZ$160 for 2 large signs complete with photos (we are in a cul-de-sac these were essential and an agent would have charged for them anyways). We spent NZ$300 to advertise on Trademe.co.nz – eBay didn’t bother opening in NZ – Trademe is  the local equivalent – but  actually has fair fees and is the only way to buy and sell garage sales stuff here now.  We wasted NZ$500 for one colour photo ad in the Saturday night newspaper – I tracked how many came from that ad to the website – about 3. The Trademe add had over 2,500 hits in the 2 1/2 months it was up. Many people found it from the sign as well because its a neighbourhood people like to stay in because of the local restricted zone school.

There is still several glossy magazines that vendors pay to advertise their homes for sale  in (only available if you have an agent) – it does a great job in advertising the Real Estate Agencies. Its fun to flick thru from time to time – but now I’m serious about buying a house – I use Trademe which allows me to easily see the new listings in suburbs and price brackets of interest.

About a week after the house sale – my mother-in-law (well we’re not married but there’s not a short way to describe the relationship in English) – Jeanne Malthus died.  Its not normally my policy to name and identify my family here but  I’d just like to make sure that Jeanne’s tribute page stays #1 for name – and that link should do it.   I think its a very nice development that Funeral Director’s now run tribute pages for clients. Hopefully they have a lot better chance a longevity than the Facebook versions!   Jeanne  was a lovely lady who was one of the generation who remembered when home phones were a special thing (her father was a policeman so he had one – that was unusual in small town NZ at the time) – who lived to learn how to send emails and read friends and her (other) son’s  blog.   My father died over 15 years ago – before the Internet became common – but he grew up in a world without indoor plumbing and died while still selling computers (in his 80’s).  To anyone who thinks that change and progress is bad – really should read some more history – Dicken’s was wrong –  we live in the best of times.

See I told you this post really had nothing much to do with Passive Income. I’ve done very little work this month. So to all of you who are just starting off this making passive income online caper and wondering why you’ve only made 2c after writing 10 articles – its because this business is the ultimate in delayed gratification – you will get paid months down the line – not now – later. The money I will bank this month  came from work I did a year or more ago.

Categories
Online Business Passive Income Passive Income Australia/NZ Plan Review

Passive Income: End of the Quarter Review!

Dancing Rumba on my 48th Birthday, Nelson, New Zealand

Well a little late but so long as I get this out before the end of April! In fact the last time I did one of these was 6 month’s ago!  Anyway its the end of the tax year here so I had to do some tax stuff first.  First off a huge  tip for any of you who aspire to wander around the world logging in occasionally to make a little more passive income online!  Sort out your tax status and try to be tax resident in only one country! After several years of doing tax returns in two countries I am significantly over it!

Dancing Rumba on my 48th Birthday April 2010, Nelson, New Zealand

Now I did indeed write down my Passive Income Goals for 2010 so perhaps I should see whether I am quarter of the way there yet!

After all I only had three goals:

  • US$5000/month – $3000 of which would be passive (e.g. affiliates) income;
  • develop a website trading business;
  • develop my own products.

OK – so what have I actually achieved in the first 3 months of 2010?

  • Total income of around US$3000/month – of which about 1/3 is passive;;
  • lost the enthusiasm for the website  trading business – frankly it would be just as easy to sell niche sites on The Keyword Academy forums where there  seems to be a constant demand;
  • the whole own product thing hasn’t inspired me yet either – though I am thinking about doing some Frugal Theme skins – possibly just to give away for people who sign up with my affiliate!

So I’m not too unhappy with the way my actual gross revenue is going – though I am now starting to track my expenses as well to make sure they don’t start creeping up.

Tracking my Business Growth and New Zealand Taxes

I am still using the simple spreadsheet I described in my October post – for the end of the tax year I added up the income over the last year , converted to NZ dollars, and came up with a figure which strongly suggested I should start worrying about provisional tax!  For the record I have no understanding of people who whinge about paying tax – I am bloody delighted to be paying  tax – it means I am making some money!

Mind you my next step was to register for GST to minimize the tax I was paying by being able to claim 12.5%   (soon to be 15%), discount on anything I  buy in New Zealand. Then I bought a rather nice 21″ monitor!

I don’t know how they do it in your country, but in New Zealand (if your business is small enough) you get to choose whether to pay provisional (estimated) tax on what you have earned or what you have been paid. Given that most affiliate programs pay sometimes  months in arrears I chose a payments basis – which means I now have to run my accounting on a cash (payments) basis for my accountant – though I still will use the actual earning figures for my planning and personal gratification!

The irony of course is that people who skip paying taxes are also skipping the ability to legitimately deduct their expenses – even expenses they have anyways like rent and power and Internet!

What I am Planning for the Next Quarter

I am trying to get my passive income up a LOT for the second half of this year. My partner is not very happy with his current contract – I’d like to replace his contract income  and give him the option of not working. That would be the equivalent of an extra US$7500 /month that’s a lot for such a short time frame.

More realistic might be to make sure I can cover our total household expenses – I’ve been paying 50% since the beginning of the year – so to pay the lot would be around another US$2500/month – bringing my total monthly income to US$5500 – that’s a bit more realistic I think. So long as the US / NZ dollar exchange rate stays in my favour.

A Note About the Photos

I like taking photos – and I particularly like my new fancy camera,  but I don’t really want a separate photo blog like  Sire’s Scenic Adelaide or Todd’s Picture a Day blog about Iraq, weather and kids.

So I decided my long-suffering readers needed to see them, after all proper professional type blogs always have very sophisticated and shiny photos  which mainly look like they came from the same stock photo source. Mine are at least unique!   After all don’t you get tired of all the perfect  I think some of my photos should be forced upon my loyal readers – so – I started adding them in – around the time I moved back to New Zealand.

Sometimes the photos are a play on words, sometimes they’re allegorical, sometimes they’re random – you get to figure it out!  If I actually have real screen shots to illustrate a point I’ll use those. But most of the time waffling on about passive income online isn’t  that much of visual topic – so hence – the completely irrelevant photos!

Having just added all the thumbnails back in after swapping themes – it stuck me that not a lot of passive income blogs feature photos of Wellington and Australia – so you might have been wondering!

What About You ?

Its not just slackness that has meant I haven’t talked much about my income recently – when I was making  under $200/month from Adsense and Affiliates I wasn’t too worried about sharing that fact. Now I was a little worried that I sound a little arrogant talking about it – but I know the frustration of many beginners who wonder if they will ever see any believable income figures – which are over sabout $10/day – the level at which many bloggers quit at.