ThunderCatsLair.org Finances Thread 2012-2014

Site Discussion Team Discussion
1

Cash balance carried forward from 2011: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£52.03 NOT including unpaid earnings earned in 2011

Amazon.co.uk:
-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£11.11 (October-December 2011 earnings) PAID 28th February 2012
-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£7.50 (January-May 2012 earnings to date) PAID 30th July 2012

Amazon.com:

-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]$11.84/£7.29(paid 2nd Feb 2012)
-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]$11.47/£6.98(paid 29th Mar 2012)
-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]$11.04/£6.94(paid 7th Jul 2012)

Google Ads:

-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£88.01 (October 2011: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£30.80, November 2011: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£29.03, December 2011: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£28.18) PAID 31ST January 2012

-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£63.28 (January 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£15.52, February 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£13.12, March 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£13.35, April 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£21.29) PAID 30TH May 2012

-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£61.53 (May 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£12.33, June 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£17.91, July 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£10.15), August 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£9.38), September 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£11.76)PAID 26TH October 2012

-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£60.82 (October 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£9.68, November 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£7.02, December 2012: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£6.99), January 2013: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£7.24), February 2013: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£3.58), March 2013: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£10.64), April 2013: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£6.07), May 2013: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£4.74), June 2013: [COLOR=“DarkGreen”]£4.86)PAID 25TH JULY 2013

-[COLOR=“Red”]£61.54 (July 2013-October 2014)

Hosting Refund:

-[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]$26.51 HOSTMONSTER HOSTING REFUND 14/11/2014 (14th November 2014-15th February 2015)

Cash Expenditure so far will be:

-[COLOR=“Purple”]£28.86 (for 6" Cheetara and 4" Claudus from eBay)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£69.98 (for shipping all the ThunderCats toys over to UK)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£15.10 (customs VAT fee on shipped ThunderCats toys)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£16.99 (for 6" Tygra figure)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£32.89 (Panini ThunderCats Magazine issues 2-11)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£29.47 (Thundercast.org/Thundercast.net domain renewals)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£4.20 (Postage cost to send UK Magazines to Chris)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£4.80 (SciFiNOW Magazine)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£14.48 (Shipping for Giveaway prizes PAID Manny 03/03/2013)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£0.99 (4" Series 2 Lion-O, with collector card)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£0.99 (4" Series 2 Panthro, with collector card)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£0.99 (4" Series 2 Mumm-Ra, with collector card)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£0.99 (4" Series 2 Tygra, with collector card)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£0.99 (4" Series 2 Wilykit, with collector card))
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£12.74 (4" Series 2 Deluxe Slithe and Panthro & 4" Series 1 Deluxe Mumm-Ra)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£42.16 (Mezco SDCC 2013 Exclusive Cheetara & Snarf)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£13.17 (Mezco SDCC 2013 Exclusive Cheetara & Snarf UK shipping)
-[COLOR=“Purple”]£4.20 (Mezco SDCC 2013 Exclusive Cheetara shipping to Chris)

-[COLOR=“Purple”]£71.50 ($107.74) SENT TO MARK ON 14/11/2014 for new hosting account
-[COLOR=“Purple”]$26.51 SENT TO MARK ON 14/11/2014 for new hosting account

[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]NET Cash Revenue (after expenditure): £00.00

or ([COLOR=“Red”]n/aincluding unpaid earnings)

*Above totals include money accumulated via Adsense and Amazon and in these cases we won’t receive those funds until we earn equal or above the payment threshold (Amazon.co.uk = £25 and Google Adsense = £60)

Any earnings in [COLOR=“Red”]red text mean we haven’t yet received those funds.

2

The last mail i received from mazon concerning payments said we didnt have enough for them to make a payment so they vcredited the account until it was enough. I believe the next payment will be in february and it should be for $11.90

Ill post here once the payment arrives

3

Yeah I think the revenue from Amazon is now slowing down a bit, since the initial launch. It’s the same for Amazon.co.uk since most fans now have the book that was released (which gave us most of our revenue from Amazon.co.uk!)

Oh and to try and keep up to date with reviews (since BBTS really held us up on wave 1) I caved and bought 4" Claudus and 6" Cheetara off eBay. Looking at the case ratios I know Claudus would be tricky to get and I didn’t really want us buying an whole case of figures that we already haveto get him!..

Jason is trying to finish up with wave 1 asap and also do the 2 new figures on their way to him so he can send the lot over in one go! I can then start building the new toys toy section!

4

Just got the Amazon payment…sent out $11.90 to Neil

5

OK guys I think you should be sitting down to read this post…:frowning:

Jason is all set to ship all the items reviewed to date, which is the good news… however the bad news is the shipping cost!

Due to the amount of stuff, shipping is gonna be close to $200! :eek: as the parcels will contain:

1x Tower of Omens
1x ThunderTank
1x SDCC Lion-O boxed
1x Classics Lion-O boxed
1x Classics Tygra boxed
7x Wave 1 4inch figures
1x 4inch Mumm-Ra MOC
1x 6inch Panthro
1x 6inch Lion-O
1x Lion-O 4inch Deluxe
1x Grune Deluxe
1x 4inch Claudus
1x 6inch Cheetara
2x Thunder Racers
1x Lizard Cannon

A lot to pay on shipping, however when you look at it, we did more or less get a lot of this stuff for free (in the sense we got most with BBTS credit, which in turn we had no choice but to have the stuff posted to a USA address)

To buy all that stuff now from the UK stores would easily be over £200, not to mention we can’t get SDCC Lion-O and Cheetara and Claudus aren’t out here yet (of which I haven’t even included those 3 items in my over £200 guestimate if we could have bought them as well over here)

So since $200 is an hell of a lot of money and WILL essentially reduce our banked funds to almost ZERO, I’d need both you guys go ahead first before proceeding. If its any consolation, the parcels will come priority mail and should arrive within 7 days. I guess its the amount of stuff that has bumped shipping up :frowning: but we do essentially have nearly all the toyline released to date I guess…

So we have £118.47 in cash right now plus £11.11 when Amazon.co.uk pay us at the end of the month. Thats £129.58. $200 = £126.21

UPDATE: It is the Tower and Tank bumping price up :frowning: Jason says that will eliminate a box ($100!) but $100 is around £60 and that is still cheaper than buying those items new… unless they go down in price…

Then again we could get those shipped at a late date… although we did originally decide to let Jason have them, as we assumed shipping would be high on those…

Maybe it’s worth just having the one parcel shipped for now at around £60? :slight_smile:

6

Chris here…

Thanks for the updates on this, Neil! :slight_smile:

My own instinct would be to let Jason keep the two bulky items and just ship the one parcel for £60 - the reason why I say this is because I think it would be good to keep some funds in reserve in case we find we urgently need something for the site, and if our revenue has gone down now that the initial surge of interest in the new ThunderCats has dipped, that means we need to safeguard those funds a little bit more IMO… :slight_smile:

I’ve no objections whatsoever if you guys decide to go down the route of shipping all the stuff over, including the bulky items - but my own recommendations would be to just send over the £60 worth of stuff and leave some funds in the pot for a rainy day! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

7

The fact is, we could probably buy the Thundertank and Tower over here in the UK for a little over what it would cost to ship them! :frowning: So I’ll just have all the figures sent over :slight_smile:

I definately agree about keeping some funds just incase. Thinking about it, I’m not too downhearted about the shipping cost, since we did get a really good deal with BBTS. We also got all the figures reviewed too, so it was still worth doing :slight_smile:

8

Chris here…

To be perfectly honest and perfectly fair, at some point I shall probably buy the 'Tank and Tower for my own collection anyway - so if necessary I could take photos of them, or even send the sealed boxes up to you, Neil, for you to open, photograph and post back down to me! :slight_smile:

I think you did really well pulling off the deal that you did with BBTS, I think everything has worked out excellently. It wasn’t that long ago that this site had no funds at all, but thanks to you the hosting has now been paid for several years, and we’ve been able to get these awesome video reviews + (ultimately) photos for the Bandai toy guide, all paid for by the site itself. Hats off to you, Neil my friend! :thumbsup:

Take care… :slight_smile:

9

Well it probably would be easier for me to buy them, take the photographs, then send them on to you. It cuts shipping out one way then…

However!, I do have a Tower and Tank on the way (in a seperate parcel Jason sent, with my 2 Classics figures) I bought them when Amazon were selling them for stupid prices over xmas! Even though I’m paying as much as TCL’s parcel in shipping, I believe I’ve still saved around £10 over UK retail price.

I bought: Tower of Omens, ThunderTank, 4" Wilykit (I added her to the Tower/Tank order to bump price up for free shipping! lol, I chose her because I begrudge paying £8 for the Wily kids at UK retail considering their lack of articulation!) and Classics Lion-O and Tygra. Believe it or not that lot only cost a little over £34!

So £34 + £70 Shipping (yes, it was a bit more due to the Paypal fee :frowning: ) = £104.

UK Retail: Tower £39.99, Tank £34.99, Wilykit £8, Classic Lion-O £15, Classic Tygra £15 = £113.

However I haven’t decided what to with the Tower and Tank yet, in regard to opening them or not… with lack of space they might stay boxed.

Thanks Chris. Thats very kind of you to say and has made me feel better! :slight_smile: I did feel a bit downhearted at the time, but after thinking about how much we got free, its still a brilliant deal.

BBTS is an interesting one… truth be told (and I’m not purposely bashing this site) but I often wonder just how many sales they got from us… I honestly think they were over generous with what they gave us… but then maybe I’m underestimating this site and its traffic? Either way I’m more than satisfied with what we got.

and to top it off, yep the site has been paid up for 3 years (of which those 3 years only just BEGAN this month!) I believe as long as the cartoon airs, our Google ad revenue will continue to come in :slight_smile: I’m quite sure we will easily earn enough ad revenue over the next 3 years, to pay for another 3 years hosting! :slight_smile:

Anyway I paid the shipping cost and the package has been sent. I’ll update this thread asap, to also include Amazon and Google Ads updated totals.

10

Just received payment from Amazon of $11.47 ($11.46 after fees). Ive sent those to Neil’s PP account

11

So it looks like Thundercast.org and .net is up for renewal. The total will be $43.32

Neil could you send me that amount to my Paypal address so i can go ahead and pay for it?

Email is rodzm@hotmail.com

12

I thought you meant the main domain is up for renewal. Didn’t realise you were talking about those and truth be told I didn’t even know we still had them.

I’ve actually let Thundercatslair.net expire as I feel there isn’t any point in keeping it. To be honest I’m not sure there is much point in keeping those either since it’s unlikely any new podcasts will be recorded any time soon! Do we even get any traffic from them?

However if both yourself and Chris want to renew them, then thats cool and I’ll send over the funds ;), however I believe we should only renew the .org one. Unless you’ve already renewed them? In that case, I’ll send over the funds regardless.

EDIT: Nevermind, I re-read your message. I’ll send the funds over now. However I do believe these were an unnecessary expense.
Merged Post:
and also the ThunderCast site has not been updated in years! The most recent episodes aren’t even posted on there! :frowning: I really had no idea we still had that up. Just shows how much things have slided over the last year :frowning:

13

Chris here…

I must admit I’m also surprised to discover we still have the ThunderCast domains - in fact I’d actually forgotten we had them!! :smiley: It now comes flooding back to me… :slight_smile:

Obviously these have now been renewed, which is cool - is there a way that the domain names can be set up to point to www.thundercatslair.org , or perhaps http://www.thundercatslair.org/podcast/episodes/ ? :slight_smile:

I will agree with Neil that the next time these come up for renewal I’d probably be tempted to let them slide - the harsh reality is that our offline lives are now such that the chances of getting all of us online at once for a ThunderCast episode is pretty slim. It’s by no means impossible, and I’m sure that new episodes will happen - but new episodes on a regular basis, I think our lives have all just changed too much, we’re all in our 30’s now (apart from Nick - and Kyle, although he’s hardly about now). :frowning:

And I do agree with Neil, this site is in desperate need of a spring clean - something for which I take a huge amount of responsibility. I’ve done virtually nothing to this site for almost a year due to pressures in my offline life, and I feel bad about it. Life just gets in the way I guess - if you think that it’s been literally a couple of YEARS since some members of the team posted on the forums or made any real contact at all (thinking of Mark and Kyle in particular), I guess this is why fan sites eventually end up sitting gathering dust. :frowning: :frowning:

God, this has ended up being a depressing post - sorry guys! :frowning:

Take care… :slight_smile:

14

Long overdue, but the totals have been updated. Since the Google ads were only averaging around £3 per month I stopped updating on a month by month basis. Anyway the good news is we are due for a payment of £61.54 at the end of this month.

I’ve cancelled the Hostmonster account today, which gave us a refund of $26.51. The refund and the existing balance of £71.50 has now been sent over to Mark via Paypal. After the fee for sending it, it worked out at $107.74 (even though I sent them as personal payments funded by Paypal balance, I was still charged fees!)

So until the Google Adsense payment comes through, I now hold zero site funds.