Funding the Unicorn

unicornrider

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Completely off topic @unicornrider but have there ever been any successful white race horses? Greys I've seen a lot of, but I've never seen an almost pure white one like yours racing.
@homie the grey ones all end up looking like mine in the end, its a defect in the colouring of their hair that makes them look like Nickel. Desert Orchid was just as white as Nickel when he got old, but he was more grey than white when he was racing ;)
 

unicornrider

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Stormy and Nickel 2020.jpg
So happy Christmas to you all. My extra earnings didn't pay for my new purchase but will help fund her running costs. Nickel is on the right and on the left is my Christmas present. Her name is Stormy to her friends, she was a racehorse and is now retraining to be a riding horse like Nickel. She won one race as a 2 year old but decided racing wasn't for her. It's going to be a long slog retraining her but as we are now Tier 4 and I doubt there will be much competing next year, then it is nice to have something to focus on at home.
Nickel is now all but retired, he going out for a wander once or twice a week and he will be instrumental in help Stormy learn to be a riding horse.
I would like to thank the MoneyShed for helping me get out of a huge debt hole and finding new income streams so I can do the things I want to.
 

homie

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@homie the grey ones all end up looking like mine in the end, its a defect in the colouring of their hair that makes them look like Nickel. Desert Orchid was just as white as Nickel when he got old, but he was more grey than white when he was racing ;)

Ah. I never knew that. Thanks.
 

unicornrider

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Just checking in, things are tipping along. Life is going to be a bit sad as I am preparing for the loss of the Unicorn. Sadly horses do no live forever and Nickel is struggling with wear and tear from a long active life. I started on this journey to fund my fun times with him and clear my debts. I have achieved all of this and made new goals. So trying to keep positive.
In money terms at quarter end I will be up on my target for the year which is great. I am struggling to make money now with Matched Betting, I can't complain it has earned me over £13k since I started. I miss all the extra money. This has spurred me on to get out income streams going as I am going to be moving back into office soon and can't spend a large portion of my day trying to earn money.

1 - Blog, this is coming along, its a bit hit and miss but I am just working on growing it. As I can do more with my new horse Stormy that will help. From the blog is linked the vlogging, again this is growing in popularity and with some hard work I am sure at some point it will make me some money.
2 - Podcasting - this is a work in progress, I am seriously looking into this.
3 - KDP - thanks to @amyjay for giving me some tips. I have publish my first low content book and now I have done the first one I can see how I can make better adaptations and link this to my blog and socials to push sales. I might even do a competition on socials to win one of my books hehe (I have an idea for a useful journal which I am going to start putting together).
4 - POD - again with some time I am looking to get some designs done for POD.
5 - Appen/Intellizoom - basically any higher paying internet work.

I will keep Matched Betting for as long as I can, but fully take on board that I can no longer rely on that for a guaranteed £300 plus a month.

So while I have sad times ahead, I am so grateful for all the help the people on here have given me over the years since I started.

Ria
 

unicornrider

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Thought it was time for a check in. So things were going great, all on target for my £3k aim, however the last month have been seriously slack. Last month I only made £185 whereas I need to be hitting £250 to achieve my target. A few things are contributing to that. Mostly that match betting has now all but dried up for me. I have been gubbed by all except Bet365, BetVictor and Betfred. I hammered the boosts on other so stake restricted too. So it's taking more time than the return. I keep up a bit and hope to make some decent return this month with Euro 2020 but the days of making £800 a month are way gone for me with a full time job and full on hobby to maintain. This is bit depressing but I have gained over £13k from this in 3 years so at least I got something out of it! Not sure where that 13k is now but it has helped obviously.

Other side lines have been slow - grooming for one is a hugely profitable earner but I have not had much from that recently.

Also market research, I was getting some good deals off Angelfish etc and the £350 task before Christmas was epic. It been 6 months now so hopefully pick up a couple of those.

Amazon KPD has been a bit of a flop so far. I have sold one book. I think my idea is good but needs some tweaking on the covers to that they are more attractive. I am disappointed to be totally honest, as there was a lot of encouraging noise made when I floated the idea and I put a lot of time and effort into them for literally no reward so far. I am not sure how much more promotion I can do. I have sent out a few in a giveaway competition that I ran on Instagram. The recipients did a great job of showing everyone how good they thought they were but this has not resulted in any sales.
I have decided on that front to put aside a day and do a few different covers using photo artwork (that I have taken myself) and load up them so they appear more.

In other news I have upped my game on my blog and spent a bit of money on getting a better camera for Vlogging and also bought a set up so I can start my Podcast. I have done so much research on that and it is moving forwards. I am going to record the first series and put it out. If no one is interested then I won't bother with a second. If it takes off then I have 4 more series planned (all based on the book idea that I have never got round to writing).

Promoting the blog is going ok, I am trying to get subscribers so that I can pull them back to the website more (thanks to @Jon for you help there). I did get paid on my first affiliate link that I had in one of my posts which was exciting. I am having a bit of a rearrange on the blog to help people navigate it better.

Also I am trying to narrow down my linktree so that all the foot fall goes to the blog site rather than direct to other pages if possible.

And the elephant in the room is just how busy my real job has got. It's sad as we are so busy I am having less time to earn more money outside of work or even enjoy my hobbies, yet my actual wages have been frozen to their 2019 level. Working harder for less money is not the place I want to be. So hoping that we get a pay rise this year at least to off set last year!
 

unicornrider

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So wierdly things are working out. My grooming horse is sound so £80 per competition from her.
Then Amazon KPD is beginning to take off. Steady flow of orders so must update. Which is awesome
And finally The Podcast :cool: Launched on Thursday (there is a post on the blog section) and someone just bought me 3 coffees (donated £9 on buymeacoffee) - I have had just shy of 100 downloads and some sponsorship. :eek: @Jon literally buzzing!
 

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The quickest and easiest way to earn money if you can is to try and save up a lump sum of money and use it to invest in these sign ups people keep listing on line....where sometimes you don't even have to deposit any money for signing up and will earn some money. I would then use this money as a float to just keep withdrawing and then use it on the next offer to keep building up your money. There have been some good new sign up deals on here I have taken advantage of.
 

Jon

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Aye up @unicornrider

I would guess you are back to full time horse duties now then with everything being 'back to normal' with the racing!
 

unicornrider

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Aye up @unicornrider

I would guess you are back to full time horse duties now then with everything being 'back to normal' with the racing!
Hello! So will do an update next week. September was complete sh*te, I made a fair bit of money but then had to spend out a lot too!

Tomorrow I am going in for shoulder surgery so I am going to be laid up at home for a while. I am hoping to use the time to get a load of money made.

My Amazon KPD is doing ok, a steady stream of sales nothing to shout home about yet but still good to have. I am going to work on some more interiors for the new year and think of some more designs.
 

unicornrider

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So it's January 2022 now - I hit my £3k target for last year well within the time frame so that was good as sadly I suffered burnout in December. I am still processing it all and it's not great but hey ho.
My job changed so much after Brexit that it's basically 2 x the work for no more pay. It saps so much energy that I struggle to do extras outside of work too. So I really have to assess if it is worth it. That is a huge stress as with the cost of living going up and my wages going down (by the fact that we haven't had a pay rise anywhere near the rate of inflation for years). Trying to think creatively on that one.
The Blog is going well, I have tried to get my Amazon Associates going and while the click through rate was great - no one has bought anything so far! So am going to get kicked off the programme if that doesn't change in the next month. But aside from that interaction is good. I have started to produced content that is behind a pay wall and I have had some success with that. It does take time though so I have to be careful with that.
Amazon KPD is slowly getting there, now averaging £20/£30 a month and I am sure that I can get that going a bit more as I develop better books. I have had some great feedback and it quite a niche area. I have found that the dreadful Facebook actually seems to be the best place to promote. I am a member of a number of groups and do periodically promote the books on those and get sales so that's good.
I am trying to get myself back into a routine so my aims for this year are -
  1. Raise at least £3k
  2. Improve/extend the Amazon KPD books
  3. Return to Prolific/Appen/Populous/Intellizoom
I've kept it simple so far as I am just recovering from last year.
 
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Jon

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So it's January 2022 now - I hit my £3k target for last year well within the time frame so that was good as sadly I suffered burnout in December. I am still processing it all and it's not great but hey ho.
My job changed so much after Brexit that it's basically 2 x the work for no more pay. It saps so much energy that I struggle to do extras outside of work too. So I really have to assess if it is worth it. That is a huge stress as with the cost of living going up and my wages going down (by the fact that we haven't had a pay rise anywhere near the rate of inflation for years). Trying to think creatively on that one.
The Blog is going well, I have tried to get my Amazon Associates going and while the click through rate was great - no one has bought anything so far! So am going to get kicked off the programme if that doesn't change in the next month. But aside from that interaction is good. I have started to produced content that is behind a pay wall and I have had some success with that. It does take time though so I have to be careful with that.
Amazon KPD is slowly getting there, now averaging £20/£30 a month and I am sure that I can get that going a bit more as I develop better books. I have had some great feedback and it quite a niche area. I have found that the dreadful Facebook actually seems to be the best place to promote. I am a member of a number of groups and do periodically promote the books on those and get sales so that's good.
I am trying to get myself back into a routine so my aims for this year are -
  1. Raise at least £3k
  2. Improve/extend the Amazon KPD books
  3. Return to Prolific/Appen/Populous/Intellizoom
I've kept it simple so far as I am just recovering from last year.
Just in regards to Amazon.

Remember you get a kickback from WHATEVER someone buys 24hrs after clicking your link. With that in mind (I've not idea what specific products you are shilling on your blog) I would think about this when adding links.

Are people far more likely to click and then buy SOMETHING from an anchor that is 'cheap horse products are available online' or 'new horse riding shoes'
 

unicornrider

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I failed again on Amazon Affiliate Nevermind, now with rising costs I have had to streamline my freelance work.

Currently my main incomes are:
  • Matchbetting has dried up a bit, I have rinsed that and its treated me really well so if I can get £50 a month that's ok.
  • Intellizoom - love it. Easy and can do at work.
  • Prolific - again another great earner.
  • Amazon KPD, currently earning £20 plus a month and growing.
  • Horse work - huge earner but time vampire and not consistent. Currently bringing in £100 plus a month.
So £250 is my average.

However I am keen to expand. Options I am currently considering are:
Etsy - Digital Designs as I don't have the time currently for printables. I have set up my shop, put on a decent number of designs and done some promo on Facebook. I am giving this 3 months.
Upworker - have signed up and applied for my first content writing job. Having got back into writing through my blog I feel this is a good place to concentrate on. Also offering voice overs.
Horse related training content - producing training plans for horse owners. I have qualifications in this area so hoping to drive interest in this service through my blog/YouTube channel.

I totally appreciate hints and recommendations especially on the freelance writing side of things. :)
 
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unicornrider

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Smashing it today. Have applied for a load of jobs on Upworker and PPH, have just completed my first job on Upworker.
I also filmed the promo for my injury rehabilitation plan that I have designed and will be adding to my Etsy store. I find that if I do a YouTube vid for my channel with the links for the items in then I do get a lot of traffic to those areas and a few sales so being very proactive. Now I just have to wait for the thing to load. Uploading here in the countryside is so naff!
 
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Jon

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Smashing it today. Have applied for a load of jobs on Upworker and PPH, have just completed my first job on Upworker.
I also filmed the promo for my injury rehabilitation plan that I have designed and will be adding to my Etsy store. I find that if I do a YouTube vid for my channel with the links for the items in then I do get a lot of traffic to those areas and a few sales so being very proactive. Now I just have to wait for the thing to load. Uploading here in the countryside is so naff!
Congrats on nailing your first (hopefully of many!) Upwork gig!
 
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unicornrider

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Just checking in to say that I have tapped into an area that I really should have earlier - eBooks. I did a bit of Facebook promo (unpaid) through various groups that I am on to test the waters for potential interest. Yesterday I had nearly 300 people trundle over to my website and so far 3 books sales, which considering I only have one is amazing. I was going to put it on Amazon KPD but the returns are really quite low for effort I put in.
So thanks for the encouragement from @Jon I added Woocommerce to my blog site and have started to use that as a selling platform. Through my experiences on Amazon KPD and learning to use Canva properly I now have a fair few ideas to get down.
I haven't done a proper launch yet as it needs tweaking. I have two fairly niche areas of expertise - foaling mares and rehabilitating horses from injury. Facebook is proving to be a mine of potential sales so once it's all sorted I might even pay for a bit of proper advertising on there to get more sales. I got banned off one foaling board for advertising but I am fairly active on the boards giving my advice for free, then lure them in with better paid content! mwah mwah
In my head, I would love to run like an Equine Consultancy service, and just have a part time muggle job to pay the rent. Which is million miles away from when I first started on here!
Next up - finish tweaking shop, I have one eBook in draft and another one in planning for a series, then put some more effort into my Etsy shop - which is a totally different area to my usual expertise but trying to get some passive income stream off that.
 
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Jon

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Great to hear everything is taking off for you. Your PUTTING IN THE WORK so there's no reason it wouldn't pay off if you know there is a market for your digital products!
 
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Jon

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Just a word of warning on WooCommerce / Payments.

8gSAgs4.png


This morning I enabled Stripe on Content Conga so people can pay via debit or credit card instead of just PayPal and then I had the first card order this morning and there is a 1 week delay until I get the money AND a lovely £2.72 processing fee. No idea why it takes 1 week for me to get the money!!
 

Jon

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Seems its only for the first payment this 7 day wait

Waiting period for first payout on Stripe
Payments
·
Payouts
·
Last reviewed: 6 October 2021
The first payout for every new Stripe account is typically paid out 7 days after the first successful payment is received. This waiting period can be up to 14 days for businesses in certain industries, and up to 30 days in countries such as Brazil. This delay allows Stripe to mitigate some of the risks inherent in providing credit services.
 
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unicornrider

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Seems its only for the first payment this 7 day wait

Waiting period for first payout on Stripe
Payments
·
Payouts
·
Last reviewed: 6 October 2021
The first payout for every new Stripe account is typically paid out 7 days after the first successful payment is received. This waiting period can be up to 14 days for businesses in certain industries, and up to 30 days in countries such as Brazil. This delay allows Stripe to mitigate some of the risks inherent in providing credit services.
I had my first payment from them the other week, I was not so fussed on the wait. I haven't actually checked yet to see if its in :sleep:
I got more then I do for a PayPal transaction so I am happy with that and far more than if I'd sold via Amazon KDP which is 90 days if I remember rightly.
Thanks for thinking of me.
 

Jon

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I had my first payment from them the other week, I was not so fussed on the wait. I haven't actually checked yet to see if its in :sleep:
I got more then I do for a PayPal transaction so I am happy with that and far more than if I'd sold via Amazon KDP which is 90 days if I remember rightly.
Thanks for thinking of me.
don't forget to claim all these Paypal and Stripe fees as bank charge expenses in your tax return!
 
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