I came up with the idea of making an Advent Calendar with various types of teabags for her this year.
I had done a tea wrapper for my Mum for Mother’s Day a couple of years ago, so I had a template for teabag envelopes on my computer.
It took me a while to play around with Photoshop and create 25 different envelopes, but I got there in the end
You can download the instructions here
Here is how I made the board
Step 1: Print the 25 teabag envelopes and cut them out carefully. Each little envelope has the date (1-25) and a cute “Tea Quote”
Step 2: Cut out the matching tags that will be stapled to the teabag. I stapled on one side only so the type of tea is able to be read.
Step 3: Fold the envelopes and secure with a little craft peg. For my calendar, I will be displaying the large number on the outside, so each day the quote is revealed.
Here is the step by step pictures of how I did this.
Step 4: Make a pretty board to display the envelopes. I bought a corkboard from the discount store and decided to cover it with Christmas-y foil. I chose foil as I thought it would stand up to craft glue better than thin paper.
Trimming the foil proved to be a little tricky, as it had a tendency to want to rip rather than cut. I had a nice fresh blade in my knife, but perhaps a craft scalpel might have worked better. To cover the few tears, I edged the board with glittery silver tape. I am pleased with the result.
Step 5: Lay out the envelopes to get a rough idea of spacing. Once you are happy with where each envelope goes, glue the pegs to the board with good glue. ( I used super glue)
And there you have it.. 🙂 One cute Advent Calendar with a variety of teas and a different quote each day in the lead up to Christmas Day on the 25th.
You can download the envelopes and tags from my free resources page
“Nothing is certain except for death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin 1789
In many business forums and groups I am a part of, the topic of paying taxes often comes up.
Our account told me a loooong time ago that, as a business owner, tax is a good thing, it means you have made a profit. 🙂
Now, I don’t know about you, but while I do arrange our business finances so that we legally minimise our income tax as well as we can, I seriously do not object to paying my fair share of tax.
While I can most certainly object to some of the ways our politicians spend our taxes, I do accept the fact that our tax helps to fund schools, hospitals and aged pensions (among other things)
I know that our tax amount comes nowhere near close to even paying for my mother’s pension!!
I got into a “discussion” with a lady one day who swore that her husband paid over 50% of EVERY dollar he earned. When I pointed out that the top tax rate in Australia is only 45%. Still, she was adamant. Many others pointed out that her effective tax rate would be much less than even 45% as we have a sliding tax scale and the 45% is only on amounts over $180,000.
On further discussion, it turns out this lady is a stay-at-home mum of two toddlers and is being paid the maximum in Family Tax Benefits. She could not understand that a large portion of her husband’s tax was in fact coming back to her directly in the form of Family Tax Benefits., and that her husband’s effective tax rate would be quite low. ( some guessed at less than 15%)
My husband also complains occasionally about the apparent high tax rates, so I created an excel spreadsheet to show him what his actual tax percentage is.
We don’t have Family Tax Benefits anymore but I have added it in so you might get a better idea as to what your effective tax rate is.
I hope you find this interesting.
Download the Effective Tax Rate sheet here.
Effective Tax Rates
How much tax do you really pay? “Nothing is certain except for death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin 1789 Revisit the original post here
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In today’s busy world, I see so much written about passion and having to find your passion or purpose in life to get ahead and be successful.
Sadly, we see this “requirement” as early as high school when 13-year-olds are expected to know exactly what courses they are going to do to set themselves up for the rest of their lives.
How many of you are in jobs professions or businesses that align with your 13-year-old self? .. my guess is not many ☹
My 13-year-old self had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up and to be perfectly honest I still don’t.
With the help of teachers and my parents my high school education was quite broad with a number of different subjects that would cover most jobs that were available for an 18-year-old girl that didn’t want to go to university.
In my last year of high school I was sent to a large photographic lab for work experience. While there I met people that would become longtime friends and eventually business associates, but it was not really a passion.
A few years later, I was offered the opportunity to purchase my own store and so my business ownership career began.
When I sold my stores in the early 2000’s I spent a lot of time and even more money trying to decide what I really wanted to do with my life.
In the early 2000’s the internet was most certainly not what it is today and there was not a lot of easily accessible information. The library had a number of books that I greedily read hoping to find the answer.
Over and over I read the “Secret to Success” is to carve out a niche. I became more and more frustrated with this concept. What is my niche? What is my purpose? I would start blogs, Facebook groups and even businesses based on what I thought was my “greatest passion”. Sadly, I quickly became bored or distracted and moved on to find the next “greatest passion”
After reading and reading and reading and even more reading, I finally determined that I do not have just one passion, and you know what… THAT IS OK !!!
I have many things that interest me and fire my determination to do more.
Often these things seem to be at odds with each other.
For example –
I love helping business owners expand their businesses to create more profitable outcomes. I have a knack for being able to spot lost opportunities and can create a solid plan to implement these opportunities within the business with the least amount of cost and upset to current operations
So, it would appear that my passion in that regard is to create more money for spending BUT
One of my other passions is almost making a game of how far I can stretch my money.
This does NOT mean being a scrooge or miserly. Money is meant to be circulated, it does not serve anybody by being trapped in a savings account.
Another great passion is food after all who doesn’t love the satisfaction gained from the deliciousness of a perfectly cooked and presented meal? I love gleaning inspiration from café and restaurant menus and creating equally gorgeous meals for my own table and enjoyment.
Sadly though, I do NOT have a passion for exercise, so I do need to keep my food passion in check somewhat.
Perhaps my greatest passion is learning about myself. How do I really think and how can I make myself better?
I truly believe that our greatest gift to ourselves must be a positive mindset, without that positivity nothing else can come to pass.
Whether you call it the “Power of Positive thinking”, “The Secret”, Mindset or just Blind Faith you must believe that you CAN. (no matter what your niche or passion)
I hope I can share each of my passions with you. In my Free Resource Library, I have a growing list of freebies relating to each niche.
It is the day after payday, you have a party to go to on the weekend, and you really need a new dress. (shoes, bag, coat etc) You go to the mall and “BARGAIN” you find the perfect top for just $20. YAY!!!! At the same shop, you find a cute skirt, a shirt for work and a funky belt.
You walk out of the store feeling really good that you got some great deals. All that for just $99.00
Still on a high, you get home, check the mail, and UH-OH the credit bill is in 🙁 (bummer) A quick glance at it and you see that you are only slightly overdrawn, but you are pretty happy that the balance is only $2100.00, and the bill is only $140.00.
Before you get too comfortable in thinking all is good in your “debt world”…What if I was to tell you that your $99.oo “bargains” might be actually costing you over $2000??? HOW CAN THIS BE???
It is because of the power of compounding interest. The same superpower that makes rich people richer also works in reverse to help keep you drowning in debt.
Consider this…
Do you just pay the minimum payment on your credit card? Have you had that same card for YEARS and still owe the same amount? Do you have ANY idea when you will pay it out? Let me let you in on a secret…The bank does NOT want you to pay it out!!! You are a veritable cash cow for them. Have a look over your statement, somewhere you should find a panel that shows how long it will take to clear your debt if you just paid the minimum payment.
In our example above, we can see that paying just the minimum payment, it will take 19 years to clear this $2100, and you will pay $4600 in interest as well. Are you feeling a little sick right now? Are you wishing you hadn’t spent that $99.00?
What if I was to make you feel better by giving you a handy tool that shows you how much you could save by paying any amount off your credit card, mortgage, personal loan or car loan?
I have created a super easy to use excel spreadsheet that calculates the value of paying extra toward your debt. As long as you know the amount owing, the interest rate and the time left on your loan, you can have an accurate gauge as to the real cost of any “bargain” you are considering buying.
This method has been one of the cornerstone ways we have been able to create our Champagne Lifestyle. By really deciding if a purchase was worthy enough to buy or have that same amount clearing the most expensive debts we were able to be debt free in a few short years.
Access the FREE basic Loan Calculator HERE (the download will be a .zip file, you will need to unzip it to find the excel file inside)
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In this screen shot, you can see on the left, we have entered the Loan Amount (the balance of our credit card -$2100), the Interest Rate ( also found on the credit card bill) and the Loan Period ( the time to pay out if we just paid the minimum required) Over on the right you will see two areas to calculate the difference if you were to pay a regular amount with each payment or a Lump Sum- one off payment. You can see, I have entered the $99.00 “bargain” shopping spree. If you would have paid that $99.00 off the credit card along with the regular bill, you would have saved over $2000 in interest.
Want a reminder tool?
Purchase the PLUS version of the calculator for a tiny $1.99 and it will provide you with a reference table showing how much you could save by not spending. Based on the details placed in the first table, this next sheet calculates the amount of often purchased items. Also included are handy pocket sized printable tables to remind you of the power of paying your debt down rather than spending. When I needed to pay off a large credit card debt, I wrapped the table around my card, so everytime I went to use the card I was reminded. It really does work to rethink your purchases.
*Disclaimer. This calculator is for general use only, I am not an accountant or financial planner. Please check with your own bank to determine the exact figures.
Purchase now and get instant access for just $1.99
From the time I was a little kid, I never seemed to have enough “fun money”.
Sure, Mum and Dad gave me pocket money for doing chores around the house, but I was made to put half of it in the bank. (Who remembers the good old “dollarmites” school banking?)
After depositing my hard earned cash into the bank, there wasn’t enough leftover for the latest Barbie fashion or tastiest lolly that I “just had to have”. It was just soooo hard. Everyone else’s Mums gave them lots of pocket money 🙁 It just wasn’t fair.
Something had to change.
I complained to Mum about it LOUDLY!! and was told basically to “suck it up – that is life” 🙁
I looked for other ways to get money. A paper round with my brother was a good earner, but hard work in the cold and rain at 6:00am. I made a bit for a while polishing my Girl Guide troops’ brass badges ( coz it is a YUK job that no one liked doing, but we HAD to have shiny badges)
I soon found there were many simple ways a young girl could make a little bit extra, and did many different things over the years.
Growing up, we lived in an inner city location with not a lot of “suburbia”. This made looking for the usual ways of looking for odd jobs from the neighbours a little more difficult.
There were, however, shop around and most of these shops were “Mum & Dad” type businesses with few if any staff.
I soon discovered that I could earn money by offering to do jobs such as
cleaning the front window of the shop, or
taking the garbage out to the big central skip bin, or
restocking shelves or even just
sweeping the floor.
I struck a deal with Mum and Dad that anything I earned from these odd jobs was MINE and did not have to go into the bank. They agreed, and my Sunshine Cash earnings began.
As I got older, I was always on the lookout for ways to supplement my pocket money.
A suburban goldmine.
When I was a teenager we moved to the suburbs and this was a veritable treasure trove of Sunshine Cash.
Baby sitting
Dog Washing
Car Wash
Lawn Mowing
Finally, when I was old enough to have a regular job, I would still look for ways to receive extra money to “live the lifestyle I wished to become accustomed to!!”
A world of opportunity.
As a young adult, a whole new world of Entrepreneurship was introduced to me and I was soon earning good amounts of Sunshine Cash.
A super simple method was to buy things from op shops and resell them in the weekend classifieds (nowadays we use eBay, Gumtree, Craig’s List etc). I would look for clothes that were in good condition. I could often find clothes that had been donated in Brand New condition, or that just needed simple things mending ( like a button missing or a new zipper) Furniture was another great seller. A couple of coats of gloss white paint and a $20 table could sell for as much as $100.
Over the years I have rarely been without something generating a bit of extra cash on the side of my regular job. When I had children, they too were taught to look for ways to earn their own “Sunshine Cash”
As a special freebie for you today, I have put together an eBook with over 25 ways that either I have done personally or friends have done to earn a little bit on the side. Just sign in below to gain access to this and other free downloads.
Enjoy 🙂
25 Solutions to “Not Enough Money"
Over 25 ways that either I have done personally or friends have done to earn a little bit on the side Revisit the original post here
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Many of us have been raised with the idea of "saving for a rainy day", so we diligently squirrel away savings for a disastrous event.
While it is important to have a safety net backup, "Sunshine Cash" is the complete opposite :) It is the money to have FUN with, money to burn, money to enjoy, and money to LIVE.
It is the formula that has seen me "Rise to Rich" and I can help you do the same.
Where to now? Join me on the Sunshine Cash journey. Follow me on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram for tips and hacks to create YOUR best life.
Oh! Please do comment on my posts. I love to know if something resonates with you, or how you do things differently. I love to hear your stories.
In many business forums and groups I am a part of, the topic of paying taxes often comes up.
In today’s busy world, I see so much written about passion and having to find your passion or purpose in life to get ahead and be successful.
