A Year of Change

savvysaver

Money Shed Mother Figure
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
352
Points
163
2019, and the latter few months of 2018, have been the start of some big changes for me and I'm hoping to keep track of them here. I started university finally and am studying full-time. I want to use the three years of my degree to get my finances in the best possible shape for when I graduate. I have a few big goals:

- pay off some debt I built up in an emergency (<£3k)
- pay cash for my uni courses
- learn to drive/buy a car
- graduate with a first
- at least one holiday abroad each year
- buy an online business (estimate $40k, profit should be about $1800/month with a few hours work each week)
- work on a portfolio and do at least one internship in my field

Right now, my main source of income is Appen. I'm contracted for anywhere between 20-35 hours per week (normally 30) so I make about $1800 per month. I also do Prolific Academic and matched betting. I've gotten lazy with MB though and I really need to knuckle down because it used to be a really good income for me.

I want to work on expanding into other areas too. uTest is first on my first and I'd like to look at starting a blog because personal finance and business are things I could geek out about for days.

For now though, I have to get on top of my uni work because I'm due to add another module in February and I'm still drowning in my maths one.

January Income So Far

Appen: $401.38/2000
Other: £29.47/250
  • Matched Betting: £15.09
  • Prolific Academic: £14.38
 
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Jon

Money Making Megastar!
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2019, and the latter few months of 2018, have been the start of some big changes for me and I'm hoping to keep track of them here. I started university finally and am studying full-time. I want to use the three years of my degree to get my finances in the best possible shape for when I graduate. I have a few big goals:

- pay off some debt I built up in an emergency (<£3k)
- pay cash for my uni courses
- learn to drive/buy a car
- graduate with a first
- at least one holiday abroad each year
- buy an online business (estimate $40k, profit should be about $1800/month with a few hours work each week)
- work on a portfolio and do at least one internship in my field

Right now, my main source of income is Appen. I'm contracted for anywhere between 20-35 hours per week (normally 30) so I make about $1800 per month. I also do Prolific Academic and matched betting. I've gotten lazy with MB though and I really need to knuckle down because it used to be a really good income for me.

I want to work on expanding into other areas too. uTest is first on my first and I'd like to look at starting a blog because personal finance and business are things I could geek out about for days.

For now though, I have to get on top of my uni work because I'm due to add another module in February and I'm still drowning in my maths one.

January Income So Far

Appen: $401.38/2000
Other: £29.47/250
  • Matched Betting: £15.09
  • Prolific Academic: £14.38
tell me more about this online business idea that you are looking to buy.. Sounds very lucrative!!
 
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Calmander

Active Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2019
Messages
39
Points
38
Age
31
2019, and the latter few months of 2018, have been the start of some big changes for me and I'm hoping to keep track of them here. I started university finally and am studying full-time. I want to use the three years of my degree to get my finances in the best possible shape for when I graduate. I have a few big goals:

- pay off some debt I built up in an emergency (<£3k)
- pay cash for my uni courses
- learn to drive/buy a car
- graduate with a first
- at least one holiday abroad each year
- buy an online business (estimate $40k, profit should be about $1800/month with a few hours work each week)
- work on a portfolio and do at least one internship in my field

Right now, my main source of income is Appen. I'm contracted for anywhere between 20-35 hours per week (normally 30) so I make about $1800 per month. I also do Prolific Academic and matched betting. I've gotten lazy with MB though and I really need to knuckle down because it used to be a really good income for me.

I want to work on expanding into other areas too. uTest is first on my first and I'd like to look at starting a blog because personal finance and business are things I could geek out about for days.

For now though, I have to get on top of my uni work because I'm due to add another module in February and I'm still drowning in my maths one.

January Income So Far

Appen: $401.38/2000
Other: £29.47/250
  • Matched Betting: £15.09
  • Prolific Academic: £14.38

I would love to know what the Online Business model is?
 

savvysaver

Money Shed Mother Figure
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
352
Points
163
tell me more about this online business idea that you are looking to buy.. Sounds very lucrative!!

I would love to know what the Online Business model is?

I'll most likely be buying through Empire Flippers because of their vetting process. It'll be either an e-commerce or a SaaS business. There's none in the budget listed right now (I think people want to keep them over Christmas because everyone's in a spendy mood and profits are good) but I've been keeping an eye on the listings for about 6 months now and have seen quite a few options. I think the ones within budget will mostly be SaaS businesses because they have a smaller number of potential buyers. Non-techy people find them a bit intimidating. I'm trying to avoid looking at their listings now so I don't get attached to a business I can't buy :D

The other nice thing is a SaaS business and uTest will look good on my CV when I graduate because my field is software.
 

Calmander

Active Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2019
Messages
39
Points
38
Age
31
I'll most likely be buying through Empire Flippers because of their vetting process. It'll be either an e-commerce or a SaaS business. There's none in the budget listed right now (I think people want to keep them over Christmas because everyone's in a spendy mood and profits are good) but I've been keeping an eye on the listings for about 6 months now and have seen quite a few options. I think the ones within budget will mostly be SaaS businesses because they have a smaller number of potential buyers. Non-techy people find them a bit intimidating. I'm trying to avoid looking at their listings now so I don't get attached to a business I can't buy :D

The other nice thing is a SaaS business and uTest will look good on my CV when I graduate because my field is software.

Is it hard to set up an SaaS business? I have never thought about it.
 

savvysaver

Money Shed Mother Figure
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
352
Points
163
Is it hard to set up an SaaS business? I have never thought about it.

Yes and no. I'll be doing some cheating by buying one that's already got an established customer base. If it's something you're interested in, I'd recommend lurking on Hacker News. They have a lot of threads on their about people establishing side businesses. I found the Fastlane forums very helpful for marketing guides, etc.

The advantage of a SaaS business over e-commerce, etc is that you obviously don't have to hold stock or deal with suppliers. It's probably more location independent, although you can make an e-commerce business location independent with a bit of work.
 
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Calmander

Active Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2019
Messages
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Age
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Yes and no. I'll be doing some cheating by buying one that's already got an established customer base. If it's something you're interested in, I'd recommend lurking on Hacker News. They have a lot of threads on their about people establishing side businesses. I found the Fastlane forums very helpful for marketing guides, etc.

Once bought though, what exactly would you do with it, i'm not entirely sure how SaaS works
 

Calmander

Active Member
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Messages
39
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Age
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Can you be more specific? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

Well although I know SaaS means Software as a Service, what do you actually sell? is it other peoples software or your own software, how do you make a SaaS a viable business?
 

savvysaver

Money Shed Mother Figure
Joined
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Messages
352
Points
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Well although I know SaaS means Software as a Service, what do you actually sell? is it other peoples software or your own software, how do you make a SaaS a viable business?

Right, got it! So you'd typically be selling your own software if you're starting a business from scratch. When you buy a business, the software would come with it but you'd be responsible for upkeep, adding new features, etc.

A good example, but obviously on a very big scale is Netflix. If you bought it, you'd get all of the code for how Netflix works behind the scenes but any bugs in the software would be your responsibility and if you wanted to add new features for customers, you'd have to code that yourself or outsource it, etc.

Income obviously would come from people paying their subscription each month in the case of Netflix but it can come from people buying something as a one off (a Wordpress plugin for example).

Hopefully that helps!
 

Calmander

Active Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2019
Messages
39
Points
38
Age
31
Right, got it! So you'd typically be selling your own software if you're starting a business from scratch. When you buy a business, the software would come with it but you'd be responsible for upkeep, adding new features, etc.

A good example, but obviously on a very big scale is Netflix. If you bought it, you'd get all of the code for how Netflix works behind the scenes but any bugs in the software would be your responsibility and if you wanted to add new features for customers, you'd have to code that yourself or outsource it, etc.

Income obviously would come from people paying their subscription each month in the case of Netflix but it can come from people buying something as a one off (a Wordpress plugin for example).

Hopefully that helps!

Ah I see, that's a great description. what software would you look at doing personally?
 

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