$100 challenge: Has Bryce sold his drum kit?

Bryce: [00:00:31] Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to Get Started Investing a podcast where we attempt to answer some of the most common money questions that are coming from our community. If you're joining us for the very first time, welcome, we strongly recommend that you scroll up and start at episode one. We've done a 12 part series to get you confident and started in the markets. Now we are licensed, but we're not aware of your personal circumstances. All info in this show is for education and entertainment purposes only, and any advice is general advice only. But with that said, my name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy, Ren. How are you going? 

Alec: [00:01:04] I'm very good. Bryce. Glad to be back for our second episode of $100 Challenge. We launched it last month and we're back to check in on how we went and to talk about what we're going to do the next month. But the premise of this challenge is simple. $100 invested every month at the market's average return over 40 years is $350,000. And we're calling all the Equity Mates community to join us as we turn $100 into $350,000 with the hundred dollar challenge. 

Bryce: [00:01:39] This is one way that we guarantee we're going to be doing podcasting for the next 40 years. 

Alec: [00:01:46] And so this is an hour stop eating avocado toast and you might be able to buy a house challenge. No, we're either saving or earning an extra $100 each month. And we're going to speak to the Equity Mates community. We've actually we're actually speaking to someone from the Equity Mates team in this episode as well. But yeah, come along in the journey and let's make some money our portfolio. Let's make some money. 

Bryce: [00:02:11] I just want to pick you up on a bit of jargon there for those that have just joined. And we've got this question through our community on socials and in our contact at Equity Mates. When you say at market return, what do you mean? 

Alec: [00:02:26] Over the long term, the stock market has grown by an average of about 8% a year in Australia, including dividends, which is the income that stocks pay. It's actually about 13% since 1900, but we use 8% as like a general rule of thumb in finance. So if you invest $100 the next year, that's $108 next year.

Bryce: [00:02:53] And that's investing into the market, a broad based ETF or whatever it might be. 

Alec: [00:02:57] Yeah, Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:02:58] You're not talking about every single stock returning 8% each year. It's the market average. Nice. Now, before we jump into it, Ryan, we've got some exciting news. After months and months of research and development, we've launched a new range of merch, three new t shirts now available for the Equity Mates community off the back of strong demand from Fin First people who are asking us for merch. We've got three designs available. We've got a premium embroidered Equity Mates logo on a white tee. We've got the Fin Fest unicorn with a guy drinking a beer on top also in a white tee. And we've got the OJ Equity Mates logo with Ren and I riding the Wall Street bull also on a white tee, all available for pre-order on our website. Now Equity Mates dot com slash shop. So if you're if you want to rep us and help support Equity Mates, we would appreciate it if you go over and check out the shop for the first 50 orders. You also get a high quality Equity Mates tote bag to go along with it. So that won't last long. Make sure you go and check it out. 

Alec: [00:04:01] Let's recap the last month you were going to try and sell your drum kit. Yeah, and I was doing online surveys. Yeah. The challenge was to make 100 bucks. How did you go? 

Bryce: [00:04:15] Wow, what a roller coaster it has been. So it took me about a week to get the kit listed on.

Alec: [00:04:23] It's not hard, bro. Facebook Marketplace. Make it very easy. 

Bryce: [00:04:26] No, is hard because.

Alec: [00:04:28] I've sold stuff in the last month on Facebook and. 

Bryce: [00:04:31] It was in Wagga. It required photos so I needed to get my parents to go down into the shed, open all the cases, travel cases. The kit comes with travel cases, take photos of it all, send it through so I could upload. So that took away. 

Alec: [00:04:46] Right. So it's your parents fault you failed. Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:04:48] So I didn't say. 

Alec: [00:04:51] Oh you can all say, well this is going. 

Bryce: [00:04:53] Well at the time of recording. I've still got a day left so I'm pretty close.

Alec: [00:05:00] Oh. Oh. So you're saying it's calendar month. Yeah. No, it's recording too. Recording. 

Bryce: [00:05:04] No, no. Yeah, you're right. So. So I get it. I got it up on Gumtree. I got it up on Facebook Marketplace and I got it up on our socials. I had one back from socials. Nothing came through. I got it up on Facebook Marketplace, and within 4 minutes of getting it up, I got a ping and I was like, Here we go. These things, this is the thing is. 

Alec: [00:05:24] Why did you put it up for.

Bryce: [00:05:25] 1500 bucks? Okay, Are. A 3000 plus.

Alec: [00:05:31] So depreciation. 

Bryce: [00:05:32] Half price. 

Alec: [00:05:33] No, you've blocked it off. 

Bryce: [00:05:34] That's with depreciation. This thing is a beauty. So I'll put 1500. Got a ping bang. Are you interested? Is it still available? Yes. And the pings kept coming. And what I found is there is this scam on Facebook marketplace with bots who hit you up with this pedi scam. And I didn't really know anything about it until I'm in the depths of this. But essentially what they do, they say I want to come and collect it. One of my, you know, colleagues or family members is going to come and collect it, but I want to pay and pay a payday right now. And it's a way of them getting information on you to then go on and fraudulently rip you off. So, long story short, didn't sell it on Facebook. I have to strongly. 

Alec: [00:06:17] Would have had a real bad start to the hundred dollar challenge if you had lost money getting scammed. 

Bryce: [00:06:23] I remain negative. But I have two real person leads in the pipeline now. Very, very close, one of which is our audio engineer, I guess, Darrell, who if you're listening, Darrell is still up for sale. And the other is another guy on the network. So I know that within the next five weeks I'll have sold it. So I'm looking forward to being very up next time we do this recording.

Alec: [00:06:51] Okay. Well, this is the last free advertising on the drum kit that you get. Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:06:58] No, no. Anyway, it's still available. 1500 bucks, six pays per export. Double click is double bass, hardware, cymbals, travel cases thrown 22 inch and individually mounted tom toms. It is located in. 

Alec: [00:07:11] Wagga, Brunswick.

Bryce: [00:07:13] I haven't thrown them in. I kind of want to keep something, so I'm going to take my sticks. I'll throw in a pair one pair of drumsticks. So ran. I failed for this month.

Alec: [00:07:25] So it's not about it's not about failing. It's about, you know, trying to do better. 

Bryce: [00:07:29] Yeah, but I will, I will sell it and I can't wait to give the update when I do. 

Alec: [00:07:34] I don't want to hear another update again. 

Bryce: [00:07:36] I get it. So where did you land? You were on a very high frequency, low cost per hour approach.

Alec: [00:07:44] Yeah. So I thought I looked up online good ways to make money online or at home. And there's a lot of blogs that talk about doing online surveys. And I downloaded an app called Apple which shouts out, It's not about up. I'll jump to the conclusion I've made $17, so that's better than none. There's a lot of surveys going on at Apple, and so if you want to make some money, you can do it like it's not bad, but some is a generous word if you want to make a tiny little bit of money because the hourly rate on poles is not good. So I'll just open the app, the top pole here, $0.60 for a ten minute pole. Okay. 3.68 an hour.

Bryce: [00:08:33] Yeah. 36.

Alec: [00:08:34] Yeah. It's not great. No, no. Well, the next one is $0.10 for a five minute pole. So again, like, you're not your hourly rate isn't great. So what I was trying to do was I catch the bus to and from work and I'll do them on the bus. And I had some momentum, some. But $100 was a long way off. 

Bryce: [00:08:58] So if you wanted to get a hundred, you needed to do 30 hours. 

Alec: [00:09:03] Yeah. Yes, that's a lot of commute time. The thing that really broke me though, and this is some feedback to out of pole, often you would get halfway through a survey and then the survey would disqualify you and you would get zero money. 

Bryce: [00:09:21] But they probably got the results. 

Alec: [00:09:23] Well, it was like, you know, halfway through it, it's like, what nationality are you like Australian? And then it's like you've been disqualified and you've just spent 10 minutes on a survey and you get nothing. I don't want that and it just mentally breaks you. So I guess I also failed Bryce, but I will be withdrawing my 17.6. 

Bryce: [00:09:43] Say keep it because you never know. Next month you might make $83 and then you've got 100. True. Yeah. So we'll keep that in the tracking dog. Alright, so both of us didn't quite get there, but we have had an overwhelming response from the Equity Mates community and the get started investing community with some, some of their suggestions on how they would make $100. So let's have a listen. 

EM Community: [00:10:12] Hey, Equity Mates. I have recently joined a dog care app. It's convenient because it joins together my love of four legged furry friends, but also gives me the chance to put away a little bit extra cash. So I put out my services to be a dog sitter or even just a dog walker, something that I can tie in with working from home pretty easily and put away a little bit of extra coin. 

EM Community: [00:10:36] Hey Equity Mates. I try to ride my bike into work and I find that it saves me on petrol costs. Public transport costs. It's cheaper than the gym. I even pay less on my insurance because I'm using my car less. Each day I do that, I work out about $20 a head from where I'd otherwise be. So in a really good week there's $100. 

EM Community: [00:10:52] So some ways that I like to Save money is doing online Surveys like Octopus. So I've earned, you know, over $100 so far. 

EM Community: [00:11:00] Just doing that in my spare time. I love scouring Facebook marketplace for things that people may be giving away for free or really cheap that you might know the value of and you're able to resell. So just recently I bought like a casserole dish set and sold that for a fair bit of money and things like, you know, gorgeous, unique lamps and things that people may not know the value of You can do a nice photo stage, a nice photo, and you're able to sell it for a bit of money. 

EM Community: [00:11:23] Hey Equity Mates I just moved from Melbourne to London for work and I am currently saving money by having taking a second job in a bookstore because London is the most expensive place in the world and that's the only way that I am able to Save at the moment. 

EM Community: [00:11:43] So since the start of lockdown, I got into arbitrage betting, which has consistently made me around 10 to 20k on top of my usual salary, which is great. 

Alec: [00:11:52] Couple of takeaways there. 

Bryce: [00:11:53] Couple of takeaways. Firstly, people love riding bikes. 

Alec: [00:11:56] I want to get into arbitrage. 

Bryce: [00:11:59] So now we're going to turn our attention to discussing what we're going to do this month. We've even got some of the Equity Mates team members involved in the challenge. Em has told us that she's made $600 this month. I have no idea how. So we're going to find out exactly what she did on the other side of this break. So welcome back. We are discussing the hundred dollar challenge and we've got one of our team members, head of partnerships here in the studio, Em Welcome. 

Em: [00:12:26] Hello. Thrilled to be back in the studio now. 

Bryce: [00:12:29] Em, rumours are well, you've you've told us that. 

Alec: [00:12:32] The best rumours are rumours about yourself. 

Bryce: [00:12:35] You've told us that you have made 600 bucks from a side hustle this month. 

Em: [00:12:41] Yes, I have. 

Bryce: [00:12:42] And we are fascinated to find out how. Because, as you heard before, Ren made 17 and I made nothing. 

Alec: [00:12:51] On average, we all made over $200. 

Bryce: [00:12:56] So talk us through it. What's the deal? 

Em: [00:12:59] Okay, so as you're aware, I go to quite a few weddings across my weekends. 

Alec: [00:13:05] Must be nice. 

Em: [00:13:05] Must be nice. Yeah. I'm in peak wedding season with all of my mates and across. You know, the last couple of years, I've accumulated quite a few wedding dresses that are just sitting in my closet. And then a few weeks before Christmas, my partner moved in and we have, you know, a small closet space. And so I've had to make room. I haven't wanted to throw away any of these dresses. So what I've done is gone onto a few of those race, those renting websites. And so I've listed a small handful of dresses across the Volt and Designer X, and I've just had quite a good demand in my initial release. So I've made. Yes, $600 across the first five weeks, the being listed. That is not net. I mean the whole process is, you know, you list them up, you send them out to, you know, whoever is renting them off you, you've got to pay for postage, you've got to pay for the dry cleaning. And then these sites take a little percentage. But, you know, 600 bucks, not bad. 

Bryce: [00:14:01] So you're doing all the rental. You're not selling any? 

Em: [00:14:03] No, not selling any of them. I've decided that I like them enough that I don't want to get rid of them. But also, should anything happen to them. I've made peace with that, too. Yeah. Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:14:15] Epic.

Alec: [00:14:16] Well, I mean, what happens if, like, if someone ruins a dress? Like, surely there's been insurance. 

Em: [00:14:21] Yeah, there's insurance. But, I mean, at the same time, you know, you're just insurance. Ever. Fair enough. 

Alec: [00:14:26] I don't know. You tell me. 

Em: [00:14:30] Yeah, I mean, yeah. So, yes, there is insurance, but I've also made peace with the fact that, you know, if these dresses are, you know, no longer in my life post, you know, printing them out, then, you know, it is what it is. 

Bryce: [00:14:42] Well played. 

Alec: [00:14:43] There you go. Designer X was one of the platforms you listed. What was the other one? 

Em: [00:14:47] Volt. So volt I think is the more popular platform. But Designer X, I've always used as a consumer and I think is just a better platform.

Alec: [00:14:56] Nice. Well, $600 full credit, Em. 

Em: [00:14:59] Thank you. 

Alec: [00:15:00] Well. Em, quick maths, $600 invested each month over 40 years at the market's average 8% return. You've got over 2 million. 

Bryce: [00:15:10] Was going to say 1.8. Was that close?

Alec: [00:15:14] Yeah, 2.1. 2.1 $2.1 million. You can afford a house in Sydney. 

Em: [00:15:18] I could. That's pretty amazing. 

Bryce: [00:15:21] Wow. Awesome. Well, thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing how much you make next month. If you have any new side hustles, definitely let us know.

Em: [00:15:27] We'll let you know. Yes. 

Bryce: [00:15:29] All right, Ren. Well, what are we going to do? [00:15:31][1.5]

Alec: [00:15:32] So, Bryce, I have done something. Been working away in the background this month and I am pleased to announce that I am selling personal sponsorship on Equity Mates and Get Started Investing feed not a sponsor for the business, but I'm going to sell myself as a sponsor. And so for $100 a month and this month I want to say a special shout out to my sponsor for the month of April Road microphones. Thank you for the $100. You've got the best microphones in the business. Now, I haven't done that, but if anyone would like to sponsor me personally for the $100 challenge I'm taking off. 

Bryce: [00:16:14] You have well and truly underpricing yourself. 

Alec: [00:16:20] It's alright. Right now, this month, I am going a little bit more vanilla, a little bit more conservative. I am going to do a spending one just to want to get one on the board. How to look at over the last month. Guess how much I've spent on work lunches. 

Bryce: [00:16:40] Oh, 100 bucks. 

Alec: [00:16:44] You close $150.04. So I'm just going to say this month, I'm not going to buy lunch at work. 

Bryce: [00:16:50] Nice. 

Alec: [00:16:51] Starting tomorrow, because I didn't bring lunch today. 

Bryce: [00:16:54] As I say, I'm doing calendar the calendar. So you're welcome to join me. 

Alec: [00:16:57] For the month of April. I feel like it's a better story on like on the podcast if it's recording to recording because then there's a sense of finality each month. 

Bryce: [00:17:08] But yeah, okay. You're doing no lunch for then for the next few weeks.

Alec: [00:17:14] What about I bring my lunch? 

Bryce: [00:17:16] You'd save a lot more. You'd save a lot more if you didn't eat lunch tomorrow. 

Alec: [00:17:21] Sure. I probably lose a few kgs. So, look. Vanilla. Boring. But I'm going to get some runs on the board. Em or Bryce if you see me. With what? If you save me buying lunch? Knock it out of my hands. 

Bryce: [00:17:36] Nice. Okay. So the drum kit saga will continue. As much as you don't like it, it will continue. But I'm similar to Emma's actually, on the wedding theme. 

Alec: [00:17:50] And you're going to get. You're going to hit up people that didn't buy you anything on your registry and ask them if they can. 

Bryce: [00:17:57] Just send me 100 bucks. It's actually quite good. They're expected to be about 16 days of rain in April. And from experience, we we bought clear umbrellas for our wedding. We had them left at the end of the wedding. And when it became rainy weekends, they were in high demand. So I'm going to have to spend some money to make some money, but I'm going to try and find some clear umbrellas and resell them to the value of 100 bucks. So I'm going to have to buy some clear umbrellas from somewhere online. Put a bit of a mark-up on and sell them off.

Alec: [00:18:39] Okay.

Bryce: [00:18:40] And hope that it rains this month.

Alec: [00:18:45] That's why I didn't just drop ship clear umbrellas. 

Bryce: [00:18:48] Because that involves setting up the website, finding the supply. Thought about it too much. Too much time in execution. Anyway, let's leave it there, Ren. I'm selling Umbrellas. That does bring us to the end of today's episode. We want to hear your ideas for the hundred dollar challenge, though. What have you done this month? What are you going to do next month? Get in touch with you. With your pledge. There's plenty of ways to get in touch with us. But the easiest is to go to our website, hit the contact button, and you can leave a voicemail. And as you've heard, plenty of the community members are doing that. And we'll play it on the show next time we record. So equitymates.com to do that. And we'll leave it there. 

Alec: [00:19:27] Sounds good.