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coconutseaways · 7 years ago

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Aug 25 - 2017 -- The countdown to leave is on

Aug 15 We have a couple days before our next guests check in, a couple from Holland, on the 17th in Horta. We decided to save a couple euros and head to Madalena for 2 days. I was tired and for a little while I didn't really want to go, but the cheap side of me said go, go, go. So we got the boat ready, let off of our mooring and sailed out of Horta in the early evening. We anchored in our spot near the fishing piers in order to avoid some of the swell that was surging into the harbour. We only used one anchor this time but had a good circle of space for swinging. The wind was fairly constant so we didn't move around too much. We had a good sleep and the next morning the ferry horn blowing and the construction guys working had us up around 8. We went ashore, and did some souvenir shopping for the first time. Mike got a few things for his kids and a couple more postcards. I bought a t shirt, but am going to pick up some more stuff to send home. I was hesitant to mail anything, to save on postage. But when Mike mailed a package to South Africa and it only cost €7 - well I figured we could spare a couple bucks. Postage in Canada is so much more expensive, and I just assumed it would be similar here. Definitely not. So I am picking up more postcards and will be hitting the post office in a couple days. Our two dollarama solar lights have died on us...too much salt spray I think. The wires have rusted out and now we do not have an anchor light. Well we do, at the top of the mast of course, but the bulb up there is an old halogen and it sucks power out of the battery like no tomorrow, so we were avoiding using it. And since the rule is "an all around white light" for an anchor light, the garden solar lights are an easy replacement. But now we need to do something else, so we went to the Chinese Store - pretty much a glorified dollar store and Mike picked up a whole bunch of different LED's for us to switch out our old bulbs with. The draw on the battery is ridiculously lower with LED's compared to the old ones. It's just awesome. We put some money on our phone here, which I can't believe how much Canadian cell phone bills are ripping people off. We have spent maybe €30 for the SIM card and all of our data since we got here which is 2.5 months already. We've even had to make 2 international calls and it's still less than one month of my MTS bill. Plus because it's EU, any phone plans work through all the countries of EU with no roaming or long distance or anything like that. Canadian cell phone plans are a joke. We hit the grocery store and unfortunately they were looking seriously low on stock. Probably awaiting a shipment, there was little fruit and veggies to choose from (no cucumbers 🥒 at all!). We picked up some rolls, a chicken and some beer. Haha. Then Mike cooked us a wonderful curry and salsa chicken dish. We had it with rice and it was delicious! We enjoyed a nice evening in Madalena and the next morning headed back to Horta relatively early (around 9 AM). The Horta office boys must be tired of seeing me. We have come and gone so many times. But I'm glad that we are still spending our days sailing. So many boats arrive and then just park...for however long...and then leave on another long voyage. I think I would start to dread sailing if the only time we went out was for a long trip. You don't get to enjoy the sunny days of going out for a few hours and then coming back for the evening. Have a beer and some lunch, swim and snorkel outside of a harbour, and then come back for a good rest. So many boats haven't moved, and there really isn't that much to see in Horta. Anyways that's just my thought. Aug 17 Our next guests checked in around 3 PM and they spent the evening going to the beach and checking out some of the cafes and places in Horta. They came back to the boat for dinner, which we made kebabs!! Ohhh they turned out delicious. Mike marinated a beef shank and we put red and green peppers and onion on the skewers. Then fired up the BBQ. I love that we can grill on the back of the boat! Such a luxury! Plus it's August and the Azores are HOT and HUMID! The mugginess was especially bad today, so we were glad we didn't have to cook down below. At least when we get too hot, we can just fall over the side of the boat and cool down. Our guests were only there for that evening and the next day, so they spent the whole next day on the island. They rented scooters and checked out about half the island, went to a museum and enjoyed dinner. Mike and I had a productive day on the boat while they were gone. I sewed a small patch closed on our genoa. This is the sail that I spent hours, pulling out stitches in the winter to get the old ripped sun covers off. After I had removed the sun covers, we had the sailmaker restitch the leech line, which I had to take apart in order to get the sun cover off. It needed some new thread anyways. But there was one triangle patch that on one side the stitches were off and never got resewn. So when we were sailing with it, we noticed it was cupping air and causing drag. We had taken this sail down and put up the working jib for our trip to Graciosa on Aug 7. But now that we were in for lighter winds, we wanted to put the big genny back up. So I spent the afternoon sewing it up in the cockpit. The sail is thick so it was a little tough to get the needle through each time and by the time I was done, my hands were feeling cramped. Oh well. It's done and it should hold well. It's nice to do work on the boat yourself, instead of shelling out a ton of money to someone else. It's one thing if you can't fix it yourself, or it is clearly a better idea to get an expert to do it (like sewing the entire leech line - the sailmakers definitely got that job). But you get a nice sense of gratification when you see the things you've done on your own boat. We headed over to the wifi area, which I was dreading because I needed to try and call my bank and get them to unlock my account. It got locked because we were trying to make our final payment on our self steering windvane (yes still dealing with this) through an app that does international transfers. Well my bank stopped it before it went through and I was informed that I needed to call and do the whole rigamaroll to get it unlocked. I explained through email that I was in Portugal and calling would cost me a fortune. I asked if there was anyway to make a call over wifi (what's app, Skype, FaceTime...anything) and skype was the answer. What a pain in the ass though. First you call a 1 800 number, then the number you are calling, then they have to accept the charges and then you can talk. Well the first couple times I got no answer. Then I got through and the woman told me I had to call the fraud department directly. I explained the Portugal, phoning situation again and she said I could go through Skype the same way and they would accept the charges. Well...they didn't. And wouldn't. I tried probably about 10 times and they kept declining the call. So I tried calling the international call collect number again, and then they were declining the charges too. After an hour and a half or so, I was so fed up with it all. Mike handed me his cell phone and said just make the call and we will pay for it. So I called the fraud centre, explained quickly that this was costing a lot and the man said he would go as quickly as possible understanding my predicament. Then I got disconnected! I was losing my mind. So then I called again, told a different woman the same story. She powered through the security questions and asked about my tried transaction. I explained what is was and that we ended up using my credit card instead and she said ok, I will unlock your account. The entire call took 4 minutes which was awesome!!!! I thanked her very much for her timely help and finally had access to my account again. Good thing we weren't hurting for cash because it had been locked for almost a week. So the self steering. The unit we were supposed to have in March, waited as long as we could into June to get and still don't have. We have made some progress finally. First Mike and the owner of the business were negotiating the final price for a couple weeks or so. We ordered in advance and every month in advance equalled a 3% discount. But the shipping from Argentina to Canada was much cheaper than the shipping to the Azores so that had to be discussed and negotiated. Then there was talk about VAT and all these other figures. Finally we settled on the final bill and received it as an email attachment. Then we went to pay, but ran into issues due to the amount being over $1000 CAD, and Canadian regulations requiring a current bank statement. Well my bank account had just gotten locked so I couldn't get one. Mike's bank statements are in Gimli haha. Plus all this time we still had guests on and off and limited access to wifi. Finally, we were able to get back to wifi, not needing to worry about having guests, get Mike's sister to send us a picture of his statement, and the app we were using put the payment through and we received confirmation!!! Hallelujah! Now we wait for the actual shipment. I can't believe how long and drawn out this process has been. But we will finally have a self steering unit, that works on wind, no power and can really get into the cruising way of sailing. Back to our guests (Aug 18): They didn't come back to the boat until after 10PM. I was already drifting asleep, but Mike was awake and went and picked them up. We talked for a few minutes and then we called it a night. They were taking the 7AM ferry which meant a 6AM wake up. I heard them start packing their stuff around 5:30 and then at 6 I rowed them ashore. We said goodbyes and they said goodnight because they knew I was going back to sleep. Mike happily stayed sleeping in bed and didn't even notice they had left. I crawled back into bed and whispered to him...no getting up before 8. I think I ended up sleeping until almost 10 which was so lovely. Mike was sweet enough to make minimal noise until then. While I was sleeping, Mike ended up talking to the other Canadian boat anchored right beside us. She is from Montreal and we suspected she solo sailed here since we have only seen her onboard. Sure enough, she did. And, she only started sailing about 5 years ago. She's brave! She just had a sister here visiting and in a week or so she will be headed for Madeira and then the Canaries. We exchanged email addresses to keep in touch and I'm sure we will see her in the Canaries, since we are most likely going to go there now. We talked to customs about me getting an extension and he explained that it would be very easy and should be no problem since I'm Canadian. So now the Canaries are back on and Cape Verde will be a quick stop instead of a month long stay. When we were in Graciosa, we met a young 19 year old solo sailor from Germany and he said he absolutely loved the Canaries. And that La Gomera was absolutely beautiful and we should go there. So that's the plan!! It was another hot and muggy day. I enjoyed a swim to cool off and then spent a good chunk of the day reading and relaxing. Before going ashore, Mike and I decided to have another swim/snorkel since we were both feeling the sticky humidity. We rowed the dinghy over to another mooring, because the water beside our boat had some oil on top from the nearby fishing boats (ugh). We went in and right away I found a good sized purple octopus 🐙 hanging out in his home. I showed Mike where he was and when Mike went down, the octopus decided to make a run for it. He swam away shooting ink 3 times. I can't believe how thick the ink is. It made a thick black cloud that you couldn't see anything through. Then we saw the octopus go back to his home. Poor guy. We were just looking but he thought we were a threat. We left him alone and then headed back for the boat. It being Saturday I went and called mom at a more respectable hour - 10:30 AM for her, 3:30 PM for me. We chatted for 40 minutes and she told me she needed to get some yard work done. One of my old jobs. I miss being able to do those things around the house. I actually enjoyed doing the yard work and looking at the yard and hedge after it was looking all nice and trimmed. I headed to the bakery and the butcher, but the butcher was closed. No meat for tonight, oh well. Then sent a few voice messages to my dad, my sister and to Corey (best friend). If I had more time, I would have stayed to try to make calls to them but we were checking out and leaving for Madalena again. I love the voice messages you can send. It's a little more personal then just a text. I checked out with the office boys, paid our 12 euros and we set sail to Pico. We didn't use the engine at all, which I love doing, sailing out and drifting into Madalena. We had a great sail across, drinking a beer and reading a new Ian Rankin book I picked up from the book exchange in Horta. There are not many English books so when I saw this one, I grabbed it right away. My mom has read a lot of his stuff and really likes him, so I figured it would probably be a decent read. I read it aloud, so Mike and I can both get through the book together. Plus it makes it more of an activity for the both of us. Instead of me just sitting quietly reading. Before I knew it we were almost into harbour. We did our double anchor trick to keep us in the middle of the two piers, since there's a couple more big fishing boats that might need a bit more space to maneuver. Aug 20 It's Sunday so we are taking it easy. Today Mike and I got all of our trips around the Azores written down. When and where and who was onboard. I also added up all of our marina fees that we've paid and so far we are at about €200. Not terrible at all compared to the amount some of the other boats will be paying since they never go anywhere. We can cover that with one good full day of paid sailing so I think we are sitting pretty good. That also includes some showers and all the "free" water we have gotten since we arrived. It's been a good day of relaxing and paperwork so I'm content. Tomorrow we have a Belgian family of 4 checking in for one night. They have two young kids (4 and 6) so we will see how that goes. The youngest kids we've had so far were 10 and 11. So this is quite a bit different. Then we have two more bookings in Horta and we are done. So...3:15 right now on Aug 20, I suggested that I would go to the grocery store a couple hours ago. Mike was on the chart plotter getting distances for all the cities so we can add up all our mileage. He said he would come too. I thought for a second, it's really windy, we are double anchored, but maybe one of us should stay back. I didn't say it though. So we went ashore and I set the pace at a fast walk. I hate leaving the boat at anchor. So we got our groceries, and thank goodness the shipment had just come in because there was all kinds of fruit and veggies (including cucumber 🥒). We got back to the boat and she was just where we left her...all good. While I'm lying in bed and Mike is starting to get supper ready when I feel a knock. I said to Mike, it feels like we just tapped something, even though we didn't. Then we started swinging. Being doubled anchored means we don't swing...we got up on deck and our bow was swinging around. Mike grabbed the bow anchor rope and she came up with nothing on it. Chafed through. Shit. So I fired up the engine and put her in reverse to keep us away from any fishing boats. Mike pulled the other anchor up and we tied up to a concrete wall. There's a lot of surge here, so we don't normally try to tie up. We then went in the dinghy and Mike dived down for our lost anchor. He found it immediately and we hauled her back up. Geez! She chafed out on a rock...right after it turns to rope from chain, so at least we still have most of our line. Thank god we were in the boat when this happened. If we hadn't been....there would be damage for sure. And only to our boat...these big steel fishing boats wouldn't even feel us swinging into them. Anyways. Now we will re anchor and this time dive on it to make sure she isn't rubbing against a sharp rock. Moral of the story...always dive on your anchor to make sure she is set properly and your line is good...oh and more chain! We are definitely putting more chain on. We decided not to anchor near the fishing boats and head over near the swimming area. There's more room to anchor...but also a lot more rocks to go into if the wind swings and the anchor drags. But for tonight we would be fine. It's a nice sandy bottom and the wind isn't supposed to swing until tomorrow morning. Mike swam down to check on it and it was digging in nicely but still dragging a very small amount. While he was looking...he saw a rope down there. He pulled on it and sure enough he found a mooring! Awesome luck! So now we are tied onto a mooring with an anchor out just in case. It might be a little rocky, but we will endure and hopefully won't be moving around anymore. Aug 25 Our Belgian family was awesome. Super friendly, easy going family with two absolutely adorable kids. They loved the boat and even though we had bad weather almost the entire time, everyone still had a really good time. The little girl became my new best friend and it was nice to have kids around again. I miss working with all the kids back in Winnipeg so it was nice to tap into my younger self haha. The little boy, wanted to catch fish so bad, so his dad took him ashore and he caught 4 super tiny fish, like 4-5 cm long. They brought them back to the boat and his dad cleaned them and we cooked them up and the little boy was so happy he could eat the fish he caught. The next morning Mike and the dad went for a snorkel around the boat and Mike was able to find an octopus. He brought it up and put it on the boat for the kids to look at and they were so excited. The octopus made his way back to the water very quickly and the kids were loving it. Then we came back to Horta for the 23rd. Which was my moms birthday - Happy Birthday Mom! We had a Spanish couple spend two nights with us. We enjoyed LOTS of food together, BBQ and cooking away. The next day we sailed to a little anchorage on Faial, we snorkelled for an hour or so and I finally saw my first sting rays! Two or three of them. They are so cool, and when they find a spot they flip their fins and bury themselves under the sand. It was awesome. Then cooked up some big fat hamburgers with bacon 🥓, Canadian style haha. Just missing the cheddar cheese. We had a great lunch and another short swim before sailing back to Horta. We played cards and drank wine and brandy all evening and then this morning, they were off to catch their flight back home. Now we have one more booking, just one night and then we are done for the season here. It's been great! We've met some amazing people and had some awesome experiences. I have posted the Caribbean listing on Airbnb. I think I figured out why it kept disappearing - calendar settings - and now it should be there and easy to find. We are based out of St Maarten - and the title is S/V Athena - Caribbean Dream. We will mainly focus on sailing to Anguilla and St Bart's from St Maarten. *Airbnb has changed their rules and regulations and they now say that the boat must remain anchored/moored during the reservation. So we are still advertising accommodations on Airbnb but would prefer to take sailing charter bookings through Facebook in order to comply. We have paypal as a form of payment and although this change is a bit of a pain, we plan to keep doing what we're doing, just using 2 different platforms now. I'm sure the change is due to charter companies complaining to Airbnb or something like that. So in short, airbnb is for accommodation only - sleeping on an anchored boat and sail charters will go through Facebook/PayPal. Anyways that's it for now! Love and miss all of you. Come stay with us in the Caribbean. It's gonna be a blast I guarantee it!!! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @ Coconut Seaways (#coconut_seaways).

#sail #sailboat #cruise #sailtheworld #sailtheocean #oceanvoyage #island #islandlife #azores

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topicprinter · 7 years ago

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Here’s an honest view of a short lived online business. In the end, after all fees, ads, costs etc, I lost a total of $7.42 or $0.12 per bottle sold.Initial IdeaBack around the end of March, McDonalds Canada announced that they would be selling packaged sauces in grocery store, including Big Mac Sauce, Filet-o-Fish Sauce and McChicken Sauce. The relevant social media posts were filled with mostly excitement, but also anger that it was only going to be Canadians that had access to this product. The sauces were immediately available, and no information about availability dates were provided, as well, no costs was provided during the announcement.I’ve read many stories online where people capitalize on situations like this and make a bit of money, so I thought ‘Why not me?’ I had some time to think about the idea since the sauces weren’t yet available in stores. The idea would be to buy sauces in grocery stores, then package them and ship them around the world. Pretty simple right.I talked with a friend that was going to help out as I was dreaming of this being a huge success and having tons of orders to ship out. He works shift work so I figured he’d be good to help. In the end he didn’t do anything so that’s the end of that.While as time went on I kept thinking about my plan and finally put together a website. Initially it had a form gathering contacts with the basic message ‘We’ll notify you when they become available’’. I paid for some Facebook ads, targeted people with an interest in Big Macs and/or McDonalds (yes those exist). I managed to get 6 people sign up. This was underwhelming but I persisted. As this Facebook ad was running, the sauces became available in stores and I rushed to put together a store front.For the store front, I used Shopify. Shopify is a great product that helps with everything needed to run a store front. I used the $9/month plan that allows for just the use of the ‘Buy Button’ that I placed on my site. At this point I loaded up some more Facebook ads and started taking orders.The first and second day I maybe had $100 in orders each day. This was good and I was thinking this might work. On the third day, I woke up and had $800 dollars in order notifications on my phone (Shopify has an iPhone app that alerts you when someone places an order). I was very excited. Wondering why they all came over night, I noticed many orders came from Australia. So I then targeted some Facebook ads to Australians only and orders kept coming in.Day 4 comes around and orders drop considerably back down to $100 or so. And continue to drop day by day. I realized that people were getting turned off by the shipping costs and/or times. Shopify is great because it does all the shipping costs and calculations for you. When checking out, it shows the customer the cost of various shipping methods (using CanadaPost) and an estimated shipping time. For one bottle of McDonald’s sauces (cost $10 to the customer), the cheapest shipping method was $12 and estimated to take between 28 and 84 days!!!! Realizing that not many people would want to wait this long (or pay more for shipping than the product) I started to target North American users (remembering that the sauces were only available in Canada). This didn’t lead to any appreciable increase in sales. After a week or so, orders had basically stopped and I decided to shut down the ads and try to sell the remaining bottles I had in stock. Here are a few notes on the whole operation and final costs and incomes.Facebook AdsFacebook Ad manager has improved greatly over the past while and it’s a super strong tool for advertising. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you know what you are doing, you can get some good traffic. My totals, for the various ads I placed were 2,987 clicks and 113,670 people reached. My cost per click was $0.08 and I spent a total of $236.48 on ads. My click through rate was 2.39%.One takeaway from Facebook Ads is that it will take up a lot of time if you plan to be present on the ad boards. You’ll get a ton of people commenting on the ads (sometimes good stuff, sometimes bad stuff). If you want to respond to people, it takes time but Facebook has made a specific iPhone app for handling this, so you can do it on the go. As well, many people will talk about buying products, but then never buy.Google AdwordsWith a Shopify account, you get a ‘Spend $35, Get $135 Credit’ with AdWords. I set up some adwords, spent $75 (some my money, some credit). For this I got 68 clicks, 1,553 impressions and a good click through rate of 4.38%, an average CPC $1.11. The dashboard tells me the ads converted once, but I’m not sure I had it set up correctly the entire time. Unless you have done this before, I wouldn’t suggest using two ad platforms at one time. Managing both became a distraction so I turned off the Google Adwords, even though it was using free credit.eBayWhile doing research, I noticed many people had the same idea as I and started to list the bottles on eBay to sell them. I noticed that many were selling for more than I was selling for which was $10/bottle. I decided I could list on eBay for $13 (to cover eBay listing fees etc) and undercut the others and sell a bunch. Shopify is great because you can manually enter orders and keep track of them in the same place. One thing to note here though, don’t enter the email address when creating the contact in Shopify. If you do, Shopify assumes you want them to email them which can confuse customers when they get multiple emails from different stores.Although I did get a bunch of orders from eBay, it did create more work since I was managing both platforms. As well, eBay’s UX is absolutely terrible. It’s very outdated and hard to use. I imagine there are add on tools that people use, but the vanilla eBay platform is terrible. Like ad platforms, I don’t recommend selling on multiple sites. Find one you like and stick to it.Inventory and The EndGetting and keeping product is what lead me to close down the store so to speak. I didn’t want to get stuck with a ton of left over inventory, so I sort of bought in small batches (10 bottles). At first bottles were easy to come by, but after awhile other people started to realize the product was available and buy it from grocery stores. I would go to a store to grab a bunch and it would be out of stock. So I would drive around the city trying to find more only to find one or two bottles left. I was spending more and more of my time driving around finding bottles.When I started this, I promised my wife it wouldn’t take up too much time. This was just a side project, and we have a toddler and a newborn at home. I was spending too much time in the basement working on the site, preparing orders and driving around. I wasn’t seeing the profit I wanted, it just wasn’t justifiable to continue on. If someone is reading this, lives and Canada and wants to take over, let me know.I'm not walking away empty handed. I learned A TON during this whole process and has opened my eyes to the possibilities online. I'm going to try some dropshipping as I won't be stuck with the same problem of finding product to buy, although there will be other issues.CostsHere is a final breakdown of all my costs and sales for true transparency.CostsSauces $287.28Facebook Ads $321.89 (above amounts were in USD, this is CAD)Shipping $748.40Adwords $35.00eBay Fees $44.09Shipping Supplies $15.00Domain $9.84Shopify Fee $12.24Total Costs $1,473.74IncomeSales $1,466.32Profit -$7.42

#/r/startups #reddit

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fesahaawit · 8 years ago

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Setting New Financial Goals and Still Enjoying the Journey

When I started this blog in 2011, I had only one goal: to get out of debt. For the first time in my life, I started tracking my spending, so I could see where my money was going. After a few months, I taught myself how to budget, so I could have a better understanding of what my overall spending added up to. As time went on, I naturally became more frugal and put every extra penny I could towards my debt. In the end, I paid off close to $30,000 and reached my goal in two years. That was nearly four years ago, and I haven’t had any big financial goals since. I repeat: I haven’t had any big financial goals in four years.

Of course, I have set some goals here and there. I did a two-year shopping ban to prove I could save more money and discovered I could live on half my income. I also saved a $10,000 emergency fund before I quit my job, and have maintained that savings + built up a large buffer in my chequing account since then. So, it’s not like I’ve been doing terrible things with my money or throwing it all away. I’m still debt-free, my net worth is currently $110,000 CAD (~$84,000 USD today) and I’m happy! But I haven’t been working towards anything for a while…

Part of the problem is that I haven’t had many of the traditional goals you “should” have at this stage in life. Homeownership is extremely expensive where I live, so I used to assume I would never buy (or at least wouldn’t buy until I had a partner to share that cost with) and therefore didn’t stress about saving for a down payment right away. I already own a car outright, so didn’t need to save for that either. And I have no desire to ever have/pay for a big wedding. Be with someone for life – sure. Have a big wedding – no, thank you. (And I would prioritize buying a home over having a wedding any day of the week.)

Another part of the problem is that I didn’t get to do the one thing I really wanted (travel) until I was in my late twenties. Before that, I had always been in debt. I have no one to blame except myself, for that. But once I became debt-free, I wanted to go wherever my budget allowed. Yet another part of the problem is that becoming self-employed changed all my strategies, and especially changed how I felt about money. Yes, whether we like to admit it or not, money is super emotional. And even though I’ve made a good income every year, I haven’t felt great about money (and will talk more about why below).

But one of the biggest underlying problems I have personally been dealing with has been the blasé attitude I’ve had about money since embracing minimalism. The first year of the shopping ban taught me so many lessons, one of which was that I didn’t need to earn as much money as I thought I did. I will forever be grateful for this lesson, as it helped me escape the rat race of thinking I needed to earn more money simply so I could buy more stuff and live a “bigger and better” life. It turns out, when you want less stuff, you need less money. This statement rang true for me then and is still true for me today.

However, there are also a lot of posts in the minimalism space that reflect another statement: money doesn’t matter. This message is at the core of posts that discuss why money shouldn’t be the focus of people’s lives, and why we shouldn’t tie our happiness to how much we earn or how much is in our bank accounts. Again, I agree with some of the sentiments in that statement: life is certainly about more than money, and there are far greater priorities and purposes than chasing dollars. But money DOES matter, friends. And it’s important to understand the role it plays in your life.

In the past few years, I feel as though I lost sight of this fact. I stopped budgeting, and instead only tracked my spending monthly. And because I was still able to have all the things I wanted, I thought this was ok. What I have realized is that the only people who don’t have to budget are people who have a lot of money. And it may look like I’m “living the dream” sometimes, but I am self-employed – not retired at 31. If I want to live and eat and have any fun, I have to work. And if I want to retire comfortably one day, I have to set financial goals and work towards those too. It’s not an option, it’s a fact.

So, while I still don’t have grand plans to buy a home or another car or pay for a big wedding, there are two financial goals I want to work on this year. Both will allow me to live the life I want today, while saving for the life I want in the future.

Goal #1: Cut Back on Expenses and Run a Lean Business

At the end of every month, I have a calendar event pop-up that reminds me to update my invoices and expenses in FreshBooks. Throughout the year, I also review various invoice and expense reports, and check my profit and loss statement to make sure things look ok. In 2016, I felt good about my numbers each month, until I got to the end of year and looked at the total amount I had spent on my business. My expenses added up to exactly $14,000 – that’s $1,166/month (which is more than my rent). The number shocked me, but it also didn’t surprise me…

The largest expenses were: printing and shipping of Mindful Budgeting 2017 Planners, hiring freelancers, travel and a long list of monthly services. I also discovered that the same way friends who love to shop will happily convince you to shop with them, business owners who believe every dollar spent on your business is an investment will help you justify expenses. I don’t necessarily regret any of the money I spent last year, but that also doesn’t mean I want to spend that amount every year going forward. Yes, expenses can be written off on your taxes, but you still need to spend that money first!

My goal for 2017 is to cut my business expenses in half. I’m not entirely sure it’s doable, because I don’t know what the second half of the year is going to look like yet. But I’m going to start by auditing my expenses and cutting out anything I don’t absolutely need. My travel budget is being slashed (only going to FinCon). I have also cancelled subscriptions to a few monthly services. And I’m not buying any online courses, until I complete all the ones I have paid for in the past. You could say my business is on a shopping ban. If I need something, I will pay for it. If I don’t, it’s cut.

The “why” behind this goal isn’t just about the numbers (though cutting back and saving more is always great) – it’s to press pause and make sure I’m spending money for the right reasons. I don’t want to buy anything if I don’t know when I’ll actually use it. I also want to push myself to do more work, rather than assign it out or assume an online service can take care of everything. If it really can help me create a better system, great. And if I spend more than $7,000 on my business, that’s ok. I simply want to get to the end of the year and feel good about how every dollar was allocated.

Goal #2: Recommit to Budgeting and Saving for Retirement

I think I’ve made it pretty clear already that I’m ready for budgeting to be part of my life again. In 2016, I added up numbers at the end of each month and tracked my net worth, but it just wasn’t the same as setting targets and monitoring my progress. There are some mental hurdles for me to work through, as I still don’t find it easy to budget with irregular income, but that’s a topic for another post. For now, just know that I’m back to tracking my spending every day (for both personal and business expenses) and adding up my numbers every week, and I plan to do this all year.

As part of my budgeting strategy, perhaps the greatest mental hurdle I’ve been trying to work through has been how much to save for retirement. When I had a full-time job, it was so easy. I brought home $4,000/month, invested $800-$1,000 for retirement, then spent/saved/travelled with the rest. Now that I’m self-employed, my income is all over the place. Some months, I collect as little as $1,500. One month last year, I collected over $20,000. When it’s so irregular, how do you project your income and decide how much to invest!? This is something I’ve been battling with since I quit my job in June 2015.

It’s not as simple as coming up with a goal of saving 10% of your gross income. To show you why, I created a spreadsheet with three scenarios, so you can see how much of a difference earning extra money makes. After setting aside 30% of my income for taxes, paying for business stuff, paying for living expenses and travelling (the only number I “inflate” with my income), the amounts leftover that I could invest for retirement change drastically. If I earned $52,000, I could only invest $2,400 – or 4.62% of my income. But if I earned $75,000, I could potentially invest $14,500 – or 19.33% of my income.

Side note: I made $75,000 in 2016 and did not invest $14,500. Remember those big business expenses? Cut the $7,000 I want to save this year and that’s what I invested last year ($7,500 or 10% of gross income).

The biggest problem isn’t just projecting and coming up with the magic number, but feeling comfortable investing when you don’t know how much you’re going to earn in future months. I used to think this was just an issue for me right before tax time, because I often find I hoard money in case I owe more than I expected. But it’s actually an issue for me year-round. I’ve found I’m reluctant to setup automatic savings programs, because I’m always worried I’ll run out of money and will need what I invested. This means I have only been making a few lump sum deposits each year, and I don’t like it.

The obstacle is that I’m stuck in this scarcity mindset of feeling like I’m going to run out of money. It has never happened before. I’ve made $65,000-$75,000/year for the past few years. If history repeats itself, I’ll stay in this income bracket for a while and should be able to save at least 10% of my gross income for retirement, if not more. My goal for this month is to do some projections and run numbers through various retirement calculators. And my goal for the year is to setup an automatic savings program I’m comfortable with, and consistently check-in with it to see if/when I can invest more.

So, the “why” behind this goal isn’t just about the numbers either (though I do want to save a bit more than I have been) – it’s to push past this huge mental block and hopefully embrace an abundance mindset, so I can stop acting out of fear and start believing I’m in control of my future.

Now, I realize setting financial goals doesn’t sound like it lines up with the often peaceful messages of being more present and living an intentional life, but I would argue that being mindful with your money is an important part of the puzzle. That doesn’t mean chasing a higher income or buying bigger homes or better cars or more stuff. But money does matter. It puts a roof over your head, shoes on your feet and food in your stomach. If you earn enough, it also allows you to budget for a few of the things you want. And if you earn more, it gives you the opportunity to set yourself up for a comfortable future.

This month’s slow living experiment is simply meant to serve as another reminder of how important it is to hit pause on what you’re doing and question if it still serves you. If it doesn’t, it’s important to figure out what action will. I won’t attach my self-worth to my salary or my net worth. I refuse to set income goals that serve as vanity metrics, the same way I refuse to perform whatever tactics will get me the most followers on social media. Life is about more than any of those numbers. But money does matter, and I believe there’s a way to set financial goals and still enjoy the journey.

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Extra Reading

How I Cut My Business Expenses by Nearly Half – Careful Cents

Minimalism vs. Earning More Money – The Wild Wong

Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness, Neither Does Poverty – The Minimalists

The Minimalist Guide to Saving Money – Rowdy Kittens

The Minimalists’ Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals – Anuschka Rees

Setting New Financial Goals and Still Enjoying the Journey posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

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topicprinter · 8 years ago

Link

#/r/startups #reddit

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topicprinter · 8 years ago

Link

#/r/startups #reddit

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