I was reading various articles today on how in the states the proposal to force online retailers to charge an online sales tax seems to be passing through fairly quickly. For those that are not aware, apparently this originated as a way to make it more fair for brick and mortar stores as many times products are cheaper online as a result of them not having to charge taxes.

Maybe it’s just me, but even when I shop at places like Amazon I always get charged taxes here. So to me this doesn’t really make much of a difference. What I do notice is that not all online retailers here charge you for things like an electronic recycling fees whereas most brick and mortar stores do. Another thing that was interesting was how some people were saying it was unethical to shop online since it is almost like you are breaking the law for not paying tax on the purchases.

Overall, again I personally don’t see this being too big of a deal. It must be a pain for like a small business though if you were used to not having to charge taxes and this would mean even say an Ebay seller would now have to register and collect taxes.

While looking for some of the services that may be necessary in starting the business of course as mentioned some items such as lawyer fees are over the roof. However, I always remember one thing and that is if you start to look outside of the main city areas you can at times find the exact same service for less. Reason being in many cases is pretty simple as things such as rent is more expensive in the busier areas and so people naturally need to charge more to make up for it.

In many ways it is like shopping for a place to live as you can have the exact same house except depending on where it is the price can be a lot cheaper based on how popular the area itself is. This can translate to hundreds if not thousand of dollars on savings as well. Definitely a factor that you should look into as well if yo are looking to save as much money as possible while still wanting to find quality products or services.

Today a lady was telling me that she was looking for a new job as I guess you can say it’s one of those career changing mindset that most people go through at one point or another. The interesting thing was how the first point she brought up was that in her current work it requires her to drive for about an hour and a half and so less communicating would definitely have to be a factor as in her mind that is relative to how much net pay she gets.

I don’t think we factor that in enough at times if you are working at a job for money as many times people simply want to work at something that has a big name where it could end up as if they are working for a paper route wage. If you are doing it for experience that is different of course. I did meet a person before who made less than $20K a year yet it seemed like he was just as well off as a guy that made double or three times as much as him. One factor he mentioned was that his home was literally right next to the company and so the convenience of never having to dine out or spend commuting money definitely added up.

Forgot to update this back during the Christmas time. I recently decided to actually spend some of this money that I have been accumulating. To start off I got another cheque which added more funds.

So what did I decide to do and buy thus far? Well, just like my original thought about all this I just wanted to do things that interested me and see if naturally you can then generate an income out of it without actually worrying about it too much. I can say that definitely happened here.

Now the other thing that I was always semi interested in trying for fun is that since there is a lot more video publishing platforms nowadays I thought creating videos would be interesting. So with that in mind, I decided to invest a a new production suite with this side income. The main one that came to my mind was the Adobe production suite. As some of you may know, this thing costs a lot of money where as you can see here it costs almost $1700:

While I have enough funds through all this to easily pay for it, using almost 50% of one’s fund didn’t seem too appealing to me. So naturally that got me thinking if I should just settle for a more home user type of software or at worst just use the free software offered in most operating systems. I really didn’t want to do that though as I know from experience in these types of things that the time and features can end up saving me so much time. So instead, I was pretty set into buying that but wanted to find a deal.

Sure enough, I was able to find one as the company itself was having a special discounted offer which apparently they rarely ever do. With this discount, I was able to get the software with tax for $973.78 US.

That sure shows how a little research can save you so much money too huh? Overall, great price I thought and it sets me up for all the tools I need to start something. It kind of fits in good too considering I bought a new DSLR way back as you all remember just for my own personal use. So maybe I can find some good use for it.

The main hurdle with this I think is going to be as always instead of over analyzing in how and what to do in terms of an idea that the important thing is to just do something. Here is the updated numbers as a result of this purchase:

Money Made:

Stock Investment: $800
Web Publishing: $2432.29
Million Dollar Term: $100
Affiliate Sales: $91.01
Free Money and Credits: $100
Loose Change Savings: $209.23
Selling Items: $55.64

Spent Funds:

Tools And Software: -$973.78

Total: $2814.39

So I am going to be out of town for a few days as I have to go to the US and I was debating if I should even bother getting American Cash or if I should just go with my credit card. Funny enough, it wasn’t so much about security which is why people go with things like traveller cheques instead of cash. Instead, I was thinking if it would be cheaper as you usually have to pay a huge fee to convert the money in the first place.

I know with my credit too there isn’t any fee to make international purchases other than it converts the currency to my local currency based on the rate. I thought too without cash it makes me less inclined to do things like purchase overpriced airport items as I am usually more conscious about buying things when I have to take out the credit card.