$100 challenge: Bryce will never pay full price for this one thing

Bryce: [00:00:26] Welcome to another episode of Get Started Investing, a podcast where we answer the most common money and investing questions coming in from our community. Now, if you have just joined us for the very first time, a huge welcome, We do recommend that you scroll up and started episode one. Now, while we are licensed, we're not aware of your financial circumstances, so any information on this show is for entertainment and education purposes only. Any advice is general. But with that said, my name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy, Ren. How are you? 

Alec: [00:00:54] Bryce, I'm very good. Very excited for this episode. We love doing our hundred dollar challenge where every month we try and save or earn an extra $100 because we know that if we invest $100 a month into a broad index ETF and just keep doing that every month for 40 years, historically we would have more than $350,000.

Bryce: [00:01:20] Epic. And so we're on a mission to find that $100. 

Alec: [00:01:22] We are bringing out. Yes. And the equity markets community is joining us on that mission. We've got a few voice clips that will play. But to start with, we thought it was worth clarifying. We got this question from Ilana through the Equity Match website. Remember, you can always ask us a question. Ask@equitymates.com. Alana asked, In terms of the $100 challenge, when you guys say invest broadly in the stock market, what do you mean specifically as in invest in one stock or one ETF each month? It's a good question. So when we talk about investing broadly in the stock market, it's in index ETFs. And for people who are new to investing and you do this show, first of all, welcome. But an index is a product that allows you to invest in a little bit of everything. So rather than having to pick one company, it lets you buy with one transaction, one product that earns a little bit of 200 companies or 500 companies or a thousand companies or I think there are all world indexes which give you like 40,000 companies. So the analogy we always use is a fruit salad rather than having to pick a banana or an apple or a mango, you can buy a fruit salad which has a slice of each. So that's conceptually what we mean when we say investing in the broad stock market. But let's get specific. What are the specific products we're talking about here? 

Bryce: [00:02:45] Index tracking ETFs. And so for me, there's I do one into the Australian top 200 stocks, the ASX 200.

Alec: [00:02:53] Yep. That probably the two most popular versions of that is the Vanguard Australian Shares ETF VAS is the ticker or the BETASHARES Australian shares. 200 A200 is the ticker. So there are two products if you want an Australian version of an index ETF. 

Bryce: [00:03:09] Yeah. So it's broad based Australian market. Then over in the US, broad based top 500 companies, the S&P 500, and then there's a European one. So you take the European market and then there's Asia as well. So you can take the Asian markets as well. So not specifically Asian, like I'm not doing one for Vietnam specifically, I'm not doing one for India specifically. There are ETFs that give you larger sort of continental exposure.

Alec: [00:03:38] And then if you just want one ETF, and we've recently written a book on this whole concept, Don't Stress, Just Invest. So there's plenty more information in the book, but if you just want one product that owns a little bit of everything, there are now index ETFs that track the whole world and they sometimes include other assets other than the share market. But you want one that majority has the share market. So two products that probably a most popular again, one from Vanguard and one from Betashares. Don't know why we keep going to them not sponsored. Would love sponsorship from either of them. Vanguard's diversified high growth ETF. VDHG is probably the most popular especially people who love the fire movement they would just buy that for life. They VDHG and another one that Betashares has that's a similar product is DHHF. It's like betashares diversified high growth. So there two, if you just want one ETF and every month if you're saving or earning an extra hundred dollars, you can just put it in either of those products and then get on with your life. 

Bryce: [00:04:43] Way to go. 

Alec: [00:04:43] And if you want more information on that, Don't Stress just invest the book. 

Bryce: [00:04:47] Not set. 

Alec: [00:04:48] Bryce, We're not here to plug our book. We're here to talk about what we've been doing. And we have to start with you, because for the last ten months, you've been trying to build a dropshipping empire. 

Bryce: [00:04:56] Uh huh. I have Ren. I have Ren. It continues. So just a. Rewind. If you've just joined us for the first time, I wanted to create something that would start to generate some passive income. Well, not quite. Passive work is involved, but some more sustainable long term income. And I decided to set up a dropshipping business.

Alec: [00:05:15] And for people unfamiliar with the term. 

Bryce: [00:05:17] Dropshipping is where you create an e-commerce website and you choose a number of products to sell on the website. And those products are housed and distributed through a third party warehouse. So I don't have to actually buy any of the products. I just have the page where people come and buy them and it shoots the order off to this warehouse, and the warehouse then sends the customer the product. So for me, it just becomes a marketing game. Now, I said that by December I would have sold my first products. I've decided to start with sunglasses, given we're moving into summer. I looked at Google Trends. I did a whole bunch of research and have decided to go down the sunglasses route. 

Alec: [00:05:59] No, and there's another reason as well. That first year at uni, when we were living in college, you was selling sunglasses? There was one particular college resident who probably was big up to large percentage of your sales, but it was called summer days, spelt DAYZE. 

Bryce: [00:06:18] DAZE 

Alec: [00:06:21] Summer Daze. And you always had a soft spot for sunglasses. 

Bryce: [00:06:28] Yeah, it went well. So long story short, I haven't sold any because I'm still working on the website. It's actually taking a bit more time than I anticipated because I need to import all the products. But when you import them from not actually physically import, what I mean is rip all the information from the warehouse.

Alec: [00:06:44] Like a software system, AliExpress or something. 

Bryce: [00:06:47] Yeah, exactly. So take all the information from the Chinese manufacturers and make it look good and trustworthy on my website. And so the process for doing that whilst is streamlined, is taking a lot longer than I anticipated. Then I also needed to go through the process to actually push ads I made on Instagram and Facebook. I needed to set up ad ad accounts and so then I needed to set up a summer Daze Facebook page and blah blah blah. It's not as easy because otherwise it'll be like Bryce Leske is pumping sunglasses ads, and I don't want it to be from my personal profile. It needs to be from the shop profile. 

Alec: [00:07:22] Even though you're speaking about it on this podcast. 

Bryce: [00:07:25] Yeah, but it's weird. If it would be like. 

Alec: [00:07:29] Iit would be weird. 

Bryce: [00:07:29] Yeah. So for the non listeners of the show, it needs to come from a more official looking Facebook page. 

Alec: [00:07:35] Sorry. And is the business called summer Daze still? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So if people see ads for summer days.

Bryce: [00:07:41] Go for.

Alec: [00:07:41] It. Right. Let's keep pushing. 

Bryce: [00:07:42] Sometimes I'll even by the time I come to sales, I will have a promotional code for all this. Let's put it that nice. 

Alec: [00:07:49] Yeah, that's good. That's a good way to bump sales. Yes. 

Bryce: [00:07:51] So I, I'm getting traffic obviously just probably through people listening. But it's I'm losing the opportunity because people are so excited. 

Alec: [00:07:59] So producer Sacsha messaged us when this first episode went out two months ago. Bryce, $100 challenge. Bryce launching a drop shipping empire. We were on the bus on the way to a talk. Yeah. And Sascha messaged and said, I hope you've got products on this page because I was like, what 200 website hits? You didn't have products.

Bryce: [00:08:17] I did not products. So I pulled the trigger too early. Yeah. Oh, yeah. 

Alec: [00:08:22] Your most engaged customer feel let down know. Not a good way to start a business. 

Bryce: [00:08:27] No, I know. Lesson learnt. So. So. Look, it is in progress. You can check out the website. It's live. We put a link in the show notes. 

Alec: [00:08:35] Somedaze.com. 

Bryce: [00:08:36] And I couldn't get there. 

Alec: [00:08:37] Couldn't get the dot com. 

Bryce: [00:08:39] And I could, I could paid for it. It's it's rather lengthy it's Hellosummerdaze.myshopify.com go to. 

Alec: [00:08:45] My Shopify you are you didn't even shell out the ten bucks for an actual URL. 

Bryce: [00:08:49] I couldn't get the. 

Alec: [00:08:51] But they didn't do like a summer halo summer days.com or like a summer days dot net. I think they're all taken. 

Bryce: [00:08:57] Yeah. Summer Daze is a popular business now anyway I probably could done. Hello Summer days. I'll have a look at it. I'll have a look at it because it's not again it's not very trustworthy in my Shopify. Yeah but yeah, I've got a few brands on there. I'm also going to start, I'm also testing sleep masks as well. 

Alec: [00:09:13] Like sleep apnoea mask.

Bryce: [00:09:14] No, no, like eye mask, the ones, the ones with headphones built into them and stuff. Yeah.

Alec: [00:09:19] So, so. All right, so here's my take away. 

Alec: [00:09:22] Here's my take away.

Bryce: [00:09:24] Goggles. 

Alec: [00:09:26] Swimming goggles. Not that. 

Bryce: [00:09:28] Yeah. 

Alec: [00:09:29] So here's my takeaway so far. The $100 challenge is all about finding small bits of cash regularly and deploying it in the market. Instead, what you've done is taken on a massive project to build a business, which, if it's successful, would generate more than small amounts of cash. 

Bryce: [00:09:48] We'll make up for it. 

Alec: [00:09:48] But it's not in the dollar cost averaging. Small things add up to big things. Spirit. Instead it's let's build a big thing. 

Bryce: [00:10:00] And then it will be big. Yes, but. But that's not to say this month. I also haven't had some small awareness, which I'm happy to talk about once we get to it. 

Alec: [00:10:09] Okay, well, let's keep moving. Let's take a break here. Take a deep breath. And then on the other side, we'll hear from the equity markets community some of their wins, and then we'll speak about what we've done this month. All right. Welcome back to Get Started Investing. We're here doing our $100 Challenge episode where every month we try and save and earn an extra hundred dollars to put in the stock market, because we know that $100 invested every month for 40 years at 8% return is $350,000. The hundred dollar challenge has also become the Dropshipping challenge as Bryce tries to build a shipping empire. Yeah, if it pays off, you're going to be sitting on a lot of growth. We're going to need to adjust camera height because you'll be so high on a high horse. But you know, we're also just trying to do the basics right? Everyone's facing cost of living challenges. And if they can find ways to save, if they can find ways to earn more, that goes a long way when times are tight. And so let's turn to that, because we've both been doing things in our personal finances to free up some extra cash. But equity markets community has also been doing it, and we've got a bit of a montage of some voice clips here. 

EM Community: [00:11:30] Hey, Bryce. Alec and producer Sascha, thank you so much for the inspiration. That is the $100 challenge. I've been making about 115 bucks a week just picking up trash from the side of the road and listing in a marketplace or Gumtree. Of course, it's got to be in good condition in working order out, test everything and give it a clean any way. But with a cost base of zero, I don't need to sell it for much. I just want to move the stuff on. We're talking furniture board games, pallets, figurines, video games, exercise equipment, Pokémon cards, whatever. I find there's a market for it. I'm going to rehome it and make some money.

EM Community: [00:12:06] I've cancelled the gym membership and amended car insurance to reflect like lesser premiums and altered superannuation amounts to be paid as well for death benefit TPD claim. And I think income protection and I've changed a couple of insurances like my Medibank, like health insurance and car insurance. 

EM Community: [00:12:30] So I've actually been flipping portable air cans as how sad it was. Last year. I was trying to buy myself my own portable air con. I started looking in August and I was like, No, I won't buy it just yet. And then I waited way too late and by then I've had doubled or tripled in price. And I was like, Oh, interesting. So this winter I decided to try it out, and I bought a whole bunch of portable air cleanses from Marketplace. And then I've started putting them up now, and I just sold my first one yesterday. I bought it for $80 and I just sold it for $250, and that's only within the space of a few months so I've turned that around, which is awesome. So yeah. 

EM Community: [00:13:09] Bulk purchasing of non-perishables, toothpaste And body Wash, if it's on special. As it won't go outside.

EM Community: [00:13:14] Make a shopping list. It's surprising how much you spend when you don't have a list around you.

EM Community: [00:13:21] Hey, equity mates, It's Nick from last month's episode. Now that final season's over, My mat spending side hustle slowed down a fair bit, but I've used some of that money to purchase myself a very 60 pour of a set up to make my own coffee at home. So yeah, it feels coffee is your thing and you have a spare 10 minutes of a morning. And I would definitely recommend the investment because it's it's reasonably cheap and the only major cost of the beans themselves. And yeah, so factoring that in, it works out to be roughly two bucks a cup of coffee compared to five or six you might spend at a cafe for example. But yeah, that's, that's it. I'm saving an extra $100 this month. 

Bryce: [00:14:03] Nice. There are some epic ones. I flipping air conditioners selling stuff on Facebook marketplace. 

Alec: [00:14:10] 115 bucks a week selling stuff on facebook market. 

Bryce: [00:14:12] Yeah, some awesome stuff in there. Keep them coming in. We love hearing from you. Gives us inspiration, but it's so great to hear that. To get started investing community is really getting behind the hundred dollar challenge, so let's get stuck into it, Ren. What have you done this month? 

Alec: [00:14:24] All right. Well, for me this month, pretty simple. Try to earn or save an extra hundred bucks if you want to sign up to Qantas frequent flyer 99.50. So here's my tip, something that I figured out this month because I decided I was going to sign up and start collecting points. I don't have any credit cards, but I shop at Woollies and I have superhero as my broker for my core portfolio. And both of them you can get frequent flyer points debatable how valuable they are coming through everyday rewards and stuff like that, but that you can avoid the $99.50 sign up fee. There's a link that will include in the show notes. I shared it in the Facebook discussion group, so go over to the Facebook discussion group if you want to get it to save that money. 

Bryce: [00:15:12] We did that for my wife after you posted in the group. 

Alec: [00:15:15] Oh, really? Yeah. Nice.

Bryce: [00:15:16] Yeah, that's good.

Alec: [00:15:16] The other way to do it is signing up for a Qantas frequent flyer linked credit card. Then they waive the $99.50 fee, but then you're paying your credit card annual fee, and then. 

Bryce: [00:15:29] You've got a credit card. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:15:30] So don't get a credit card if you want to sign up for frequent flyer and collect points without spending anything, yeah, go to our Facebook discussion group. There's a link there as well. Just Google it. It's not hard to find.

Bryce: [00:15:40] Yeah, nice. 

Alec: [00:15:41] I think Qantas are pretty public with the link because they want people on it. Right. 

Bryce: [00:15:45] There should be no reason you pay for it. 

Alec: [00:15:47] Yeah. So that's a really simple one. I also want to ask you a question about Facebook Marketplace because I'm trying to sell a coffee machine. But I can say in the notes here that you've been selling a heap of stuff on Facebook Marketplace. So why don't you kick us off with what you've been doing this month and then I'll ask my question.

Bryce: [00:16:03] Well, I've actually only sold one thing on Facebook marketplace, but the context for everything that has happened this month is that we're moving house. And so. 

Alec: [00:16:11] So this is Bryce's hundred dollar challenge. I bought a $3 million house. No, I bought a $3 million house and I then sold some furniture on Facebook Marketplace. All right. 

Bryce: [00:16:26] So. Yeah, we just sold a dining table for 150 bucks on Facebook Marketplace. Next question. 

Alec: [00:16:33] Simple 150 bucks. Hundred dollar challenge. Done. We can cut all of that dropshipping stuff out of the front of the episode. My question about Facebook Marketplace is I have a vague recollection. When you were trying to sell your drum kit for an earlier $100 challenge, there was a Pay Id scam. 

Bryce: [00:16:52] Yes. 

Alec: [00:16:52] Where people would say they want to buy your product on Facebook Marketplace. Yeah. And then ask for your pay ID. And then there was that was somehow like a watch out. Yeah. Now I am trying to sell a coffee machine on Facebook Marketplace. Great coffee machine if you're interested in coffee. If you want to make a home. If you want to save money on coffee, hit me up and I'll send you the link. It's beautiful. Top of the range. Okay, well, for anyway, since I've listed, I've been getting hit up by people asking for my pay ID. And so. Well, first of all, they asked me if it's still available. I said yes. They say they're willing to pay the price. So no haggling or anything. And then they say, What's your pay ID? I'll pay you. And then, like the most recent one was, I'll pay you, but my son will come and pick it up. Yeah. And apparently it's always like something. It's always someone else. Come and pick it up. Yeah. So what's the scam? [00:17:47][55.1]

Bryce: [00:17:48] The scam is actually in the Pay ID. From what I understand. So what they'll say is you give the Pay ID and then they go, Oh, I've received an error using your Pay ID. Here is what they sent me. You need to just confirm. Something else by depositing a bit of money or like you need to confirm another level of detail. They kind of put it back on you saying like you're Pay ID in work or whatever. And then I think they then either get you to just form information into whatever the next step is. And so then through that, they're going to get your personal details and I guess can do financial fraud or whatever it is. Yeah. The second one is they then email you and say, I've paid you too much accidentally and you can you transfer back the difference. 

Alec: [00:18:43] Right. Okay. 

Bryce: [00:18:44] And I think small dollar amounts of transferring that difference or whatever it may be for these guys is going to add up to. 

Alec: [00:18:50] So it's just a volume game for them. 

Bryce: [00:18:52] Yeah, well, you would understand through Facebook that the volume of crap that you get is. 

Alec: [00:18:58] It's wild how popular Facebook marketplace is. Yeah. Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:19:01] Yeah. So he's a massive scam.

Alec: [00:19:04] So. Okay. Well, I'm not going to sell to anyone who asks for my Pay ID, but that does mean that the coffee machine is still available. So hit me up. But you've got a few other things that you've been doing, right? 

Bryce: [00:19:16] Yes. So it's in light of us obviously getting a house and we're moving in and we need to buy a few things. And what I read online was there is no circumstance ever that you should pay full price for anything to do with furniture or electric goods. If you're buying anything online at full price, you shouldn't be doing that. A, because there are so many sales on at all times across different retailers and and B, it's just because it's just known that these goods are so the margins on these things are ridiculous and also it's because retailers expect some level of bargaining. And so you either have to do it on the phone or going to the store. So I thought about stuff it. I'm going to give this a shot.

Alec: [00:19:59] That's a side note. That's a good platform idea. Someone who figures out how you can haggle with e-commerce. 

Bryce: [00:20:07] Yeah, well, Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, all those retail shops. The policy is if someone asks, can you do a better price? They always have a better price available. 

Alec: [00:20:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can't ask online. 

Bryce: [00:20:18] No, exactly. You can't ask online. Yeah. So I thought I'd try this out. There was a bed frame that we wanted that was already on sale from a little shop down in Wangaratta called them and said, Can you do an even better price? They took a further 200 bucks off it, even though it was already on sale. Then we went to Freedom Furniture to get a couch, said, What's the best price you can do? She said, We can give 15% off. I said, Can you do 20? She gave 20% off. I saved money there. Then I'm like, This is probably going to work for all the electricity providers and stuff as well. So I called our electricity provider and was like, Hey, we're moving houses, Can you do the switch across? But I've also had a look around thinking of moving. Didn't say anything about rates because I hadn't actually done that. And they're like, No, no, stay with us. We'll reduce your rates and we'll give you a $50 credit on the bill. It turns out of then the rates that we got were very competitive. And then for a table that we wanted, we actually went into the store and bought the floor stock because it had some scuffs on the bottom and was like 70% off. 

Alec: [00:21:20] 70% off. 

Bryce: [00:21:21] Yeah, well scuffs on the bottom. And I found out that the floor stock in furniture places, they rotate out every like few months. And so if you come within a decent enough period of time to the rotation, they're just like marking shit down and fresh. While not so much freshly has been floor stocked, they're just marking it down because they're like on the 6th of November. We need all of this stuff going. So we've got the next season of stuff. 

Alec: [00:21:44] Oh, sorry. I thought you were saying like every few weeks the same table gets replaced. 

Bryce: [00:21:48] And so you like the new summer type? 

Alec: [00:21:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you fashion. 

Bryce: [00:21:54] So we took it with a couple of scuffs in the bottom and got, like, 70% off. So, yeah. 

Alec: [00:21:59] Here's the question. In the spirit of the hundred dollar challenge, how much of all those savings are you putting into the market? 

Bryce: [00:22:05] Yeah, that is a good question. I'll put 150 in dining table because it's cold, hard cash. Yeah. The rest are savings on money going out the door. 

Alec: [00:22:16] Nice. Well, look, I think that brings us to the end of another hundred dollar challenge slash Bryce builds the Dropshipping business. Yes. We will continue to touch base on the progress of Dropshipping. Yeah, but I think we might just move it to the background. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And we'll keep trying to do the small things every month that help us all manage cost of living challenges and also get some money into the market. Keep the voice notes coming in. Crackers this month. 

Bryce: [00:22:46] Absolutely. 

Alec: [00:22:47] The portable air conditioner. I don't have air conditioning at my house. I might have to hit them up. 

Bryce: [00:22:51] I have seen this play out. The incredible rise of air conditioning units across the board in summer months. It obviously makes sense. 

Alec: [00:22:58] But you have a history of trying to play volatile asset classes. And where my mind goes is Bryce had the business idea of buying hundreds of clear umbrellas. Yes. And then selling them too soon to be bride and groom. And when the weather forecast changed. Yeah, because you need it because the photos are better. 

Bryce: [00:23:22] Yes, much better. But that was a very, very volatile because it's not like you can predict that generally speaking, we're going to get three months of summer a year. 

Alec: [00:23:31] Yes. Yeah.

Bryce: [00:23:32] It's kind of like I need to take on all this stock and hope that it rains. 

Alec: [00:23:37] Why don't you Dropship clear umbrellas and then just make your ads. 

Bryce: [00:23:40] The Shipping shipping a. Thought about it. It's because what happens is that the bridal party will want it three days out. Then they're not going to take on 50 umbrellas, you know, to cover. It might rain. It's like it's going to rain. We need umbrellas now. Yeah. Yeah. So that inventory, you.

Alec: [00:23:57] Just you just bought a $3 million house. Oh, surely you've got warehouse space, don't you have a three car garage now. 

Bryce: [00:24:06] All lies. 

Alec: [00:24:07] All right, well let's wrap it up there. Join us in the Facebook discussion group to continue the conversation, sign up to our emails, follow us on social media, and we will see you get started investing next week. 

Bryce: [00:24:19] Sounds good.