Early morning tax free dollars 🤑

Pamphlets aka Advertising Material & Junk Mail

Yeap delivering pamphlets! You’ll find me walking the streets of Chatswood at 5am delivering these bad boys on Tuesday mornings 😁

I prefer the early morning delivery before work. The distributor requires delivery anytime between Tuesday - Wednesday.

Is it a glamorous job? No. Do I care what other people think? No.
This little side job is not for everyone but I enjoy it.

For 1.5 - 2 hours (depending on number of pamphlets) I zone out listening to music or The Diary Of a CEO podcasts. An added bonus is the cardio workout! Pretty sure the bathroom scales are happy. It’s probably tired of incrementing that 100+kg number each week 😱

I mentioned the income is tax free. The Australian Tax Office and I are on first name basis, they look the other way at tax time 🤐 (just kidding).

So how is delivering pamphlets tax free?

Tax Free? How?

No there is nothing dodgy going on. I’m not that clever and my mastery of the Force using Jedi mind tricks is non-existent.

My wife signed up with ivehub and they pay her for completed contracts. She does the work too, folding pamphlets (sometimes alone) and delivers if I cannot do it. I am registered as one of her helpers (more on how that works later).

My wife does not work full time. Any income she earns below $18,200 is tax free. She does work for a barrister sporadically but her overall income (including ivehub) is well below $18,200 and therefore tax free. I never see any of the ivehub money 🤣

As a fifteen year old back in 1995 was the last time I delivered pamphlets.

How had the delivery process been update since?

ivehub

ivehub is a New South Wales business that provides print and distribution services. You can sign up on their website to perform deliveries.

The system is run through a phone app which is intuitive and easy to use. Contracts can be searched and you can request one to be assigned. Our assigned contract is to deliver pamphlets to around 250 addresses in a set location.

Because ivehub use a contractor model you can decline contracts. The contract is then offered to the market (other members). Each week there might be contracts for deliveries for the following week to accept. After accepting the contract early in the week the pamphlets are dropped off on Saturday.

My wife has the “master” account, she can accept and decline contracts. She has a helper account setup under her account. That allows me to login to the app and perform the deliveries. The phone tracks your location during a delivery. Once done I submit the walk which goes to my wife and she submits to ivehub to get paid.

The whole process is summarised nicely via a graphic on ivehub’s website:

We have 3 young boys why do they not help?

The End was not the Start

I grew up delivering pamphlets and papers. It helped shaped my work ethic and introduced me to having money.

We initially thought this would be great opportunity to get the kids involved. Oscar (12) wasn’t interested despite the potential to earn steady money. Elliot (6) liked the idea but lost interest walking his first delivery. No it wasn’t at 5am, we did it after school.

Theo was keen as beans! He would help fold and was super eager to do the deliveries after school. He insisted on bringing snacks and regular rest stops. I was impressed with his attitude. Being the only one helping we gave him the lion’s share of the earnings. At one stage he was getting a steady $25-$35 a week, big money for an 8 year old.

But then he grew disinterested. I thought the incoming money would fuel his motivation. He would complain about delivering and drag his feet.

Rach and I ended up doing the pamphlet run each week. We decided to redirect the earnings into the boys pocket money and save the rest. The budget was stoked as we could remove the pocket money line item.

Conclusion

I hoped this would start our kids relationship with work & money, I failed. I need to sit down and think about where it went wrong or perhaps I started too early?

Now it’s morphed into something else and I am ok with that.

If you’re in Chatswood at 5am on a Tuesday morning you might see a handsome bald brown man 😆 carrying bags filled with pamphlets. Say “Hi” he will probably say “Hey” back with a little Bro Nod 🙂