We’ve started interacting here and there with “J. Money” from Budgets are Sexy. Now the most interesting thing is he found our blog (so we think?) right around when he got a one-time *event* of $75,000 in a single day! (December 2016). Coincidence? We think not. Now that said, we’ll put a spin on two of his latest posts to see if we can get more people on board the money making *bullet* train versus the cutting costs normal train. If we can convince just 1% of the individuals to make the jump we’ll call it a success (yes double meaning on 1% intended).
Disclaimer: we are not backing away from our belief that a time for money exchange is bad, instead the post is set up to prove that everyone, including hourly income individuals, generate incomes well below what they can get as a solo shop. We believe no one is maximizing their income, it just isn’t possible due to market inefficiencies.
Quick Overview of J’s Blog: From what we can tell he is passionate about the blog (you can see it in the writing). He seems to be a workaholic doing tons of personal finance type projects and that’s usually a good sign of someone who is interested in the topic. As Naval Ravikant would say, you’re moving in the right direction when… “It won’t feel like hard work to you but will look like work to everyone else”. We have nothing against cutting costs (you can’t get rich if you spend 100% of what you make) but we do think it is more efficient to focus on making more money (hence our blog is about ways to make $$$!). With that out of the way, he has two posts one on him giving away $100 a month and the second on what to do if you have a $2,000 emergency (we’ll address both here).
What to do With $100 a Month (Anyone)
We’ll start with the latest, if someone gives you $100 today and you have a handful of skills the answer is to launch a small website immediately. We’ve focused primarily on product sales (most are not ready for this it seems) but we’ll give yet another idea… Start a basic consulting/services practice. If you have niche knowledge in any topic, you’re underpaid. Take a look at this chart.
Now we’ve certainly made this chart extremely simple. It looks exactly like your typical “supply and demand” chart. Essentially the first customer plot 1, is willing to give you $6 worth of profit. The second customer needs you less and would be willing to give you about $5 worth of profit. So on and so forth. This occurs until customer 6 where they are no longer worth your time. Importantly, this can be either your time (services) or a product sale (price point)
Now here comes the depressing part, how does this work if you actually work for someone else? Well take a look at one small edit… Now you’ll see what is going on. Absolutely no Company is going to give you more money than you are worth (assuming you’re an actual good employee – many companies have “inefficiencies” as well). If profits were to go negative for an extended period of time the Company would be in quite a big heap of trouble! So there you have it, two extremely simply charts to prove you’re underpaid!
Now back to the original question on what to do. We would go and open up a basic website (cost around $200 for the domain/hosting/decent template design), saving the first Benjamin (writing your sales page in the meantime) then getting to work in month two. Now you go and start a small website and link everyone on your social media accounts to that website (most have social media even with a few hundred “friends”). Then… kaboom you start your basic practice with either 1) what you already do or 2) with something *else* you are an expert in. Everyone has talent in something, so we would wager that every single person reading this is in the top 20% in at least two items. That is all it takes (two items) if you don’t want to have a conflicting businesses with your current job/career. You can then immediately acquire a handful of customers and make back the $200 (assumes a 3% conversion rate on 200 customers = 6 customers at $50 each… or a $100 profit in your first day “in business”). This is not unreasonable at all.
Now once that’s done you keep the first $100 you made and when the second $100 comes in you use it to outsource your customer reviews (if you have a ton of time do it yourself). Your customer reviews will be organized by someone else dealing with the back and forth emails and paid on a quick contact (easy to do on fiverr). Your second page on your site is going to be customer reviews of your service/product because you better *over deliver in a big way* to your first set of customers. This leads to several positive reviews and will then make it easier to keep your conversion rate at ~3%. You’re already rolling. Top cap it off, the most clear example we see every single day is in the gym. Several in shape guys (who need extra money) spend their time with headsets on ignoring everyone. Since “material” on working out is practically all a scam on the same old basic concepts (compound lifting) the special sauce is in the sale/services. They are typically standing right next to out of shape people with tons of money and can’t get the lightbulb to go on!
To put the nail in the coffin… if you end up getting more customers than you can handle you will now have the option to 1) raise prices or 2) hire others to do the work! In short? You’ve Set up a Potential *Event*. We have talked about *events* many times. But. This is important to understanding when you’re building something basic like this with scale. You can either 1) sell a stake in it like J. Money did, 2) see how much pricing power you have giving you immediate income off of the same amount of work or 3) outsource the work creating a semi-passive income stream (we would do number 3 most likely).
How to Come Up With a Quick $2,000
We read the entire article and agree that unprepared individuals would struggle to deal with a $2,000 payment. That said, if this was truly a “one time charge” (or restructuring charge as the finance community would call it) you could offset the cost by simply using the internet! That’s right, if you had ~1 year to generate $2,000 in a random one-time event there are many, many, ways to do it. Since we’re focused on keeping it basic for this post, anyone will be able to do this.
Step 1 – Internet Access: If you live in the United States (the greatest country on earth), practically every public library will have access to the internet. This means you will have free internet access if you need it. There are no excuses here, being born in the United States is a gift in its own right.
Step 2 – Zero Percent 18 month APR Credit Card: Now if you’re going to do something on the internet you’ll need a credit card. There are several credit cards that offer 18 month zero percent interest as long as you pay a very small fraction of the total balance each month. You’ll use this type of card for the return we’re dealing with about $2,000 is the goal.
Step 3 – Coming Up With Minimum Payment: To really get rid of the negativity (excuses), for a $2,000 balance… you’ll need a grand total of $20 a month. Now… Just in case someone is going to lie to us and say they can’t figure out how to get $20 we will happily say that you can come up with $20 looking for change on Wall Street over the course of a week (joke). For a grand total of $20, you can simply trade your time for money by working one extra hour for the month. If someone really can’t even do that… then become an Uber driver during rush hour one time or go recycle some plastic bottles. In short, there is no excuse for not being able to come up with $20 and anyone who disagrees should re-read this paragraph.
Step 4 – Get On Social Media: Now once you have that set up, you’re going to become a stalker! Not stalking other “friends” you know. But. Becoming a real stalker of what is “hot”. To make a quick turn around you’re looking for any product that has extremely high demand and limited supply. During our last Q&A someone asked about a quick “buck” to pay rent and that’s essentially what this situation would be. Your answer is the following: Technology devices (gaming products,most popular iPhones, etc.), Sporting events (limited seating), Concerts/Music festivals (limited units), 100s of collectable items that are limited edition.
Now that you’ve got the main items to search for on Google (listed above), you’ll narrow down to a set of maybe 5-10 items that are coming up in the next few months that will undoubtedly sell out. You then take these items to social media to help confirm or deny the trend. Kaboom! You’ve got at least 3-5 items that will definitely sell out so you get your hands on it.
Step 5 – Shipping: If you’re doing something that has tickets (sporting events for example) you won’t have to worry about it (congrats this got 100x easier!). If you’re doing a product here’s an easy way to set it up. You order the item (pre-order) on Amazon… Since you won’t actually get the product since you’re pre-ordering it before the sale you then want to *sell* the product just before the release. Why? You charge a shipping cost to the order! Now you won’t have to pay the shipping cost, it’ll pad your profits as you login to Amazon and simply change the shipping address. Ta Da! Update please see comment from “internet dude” below for the spam approach which also works where you flood the web with links.
How to Come Up With a Quick $100
Now come on guys, saying someone can’t come up with $100 is just crazy talk. Pull out your credit card go into “credit card debt” of $100 for the month (float it). You now have 30 full days to go ahead and generate an extra $100. Since this is significantly easier we wouldn’t even do the five step research process above. You’ll simply go and look up all the local stores that purchase goods (used auto parts, used books, used technology widgets etc.). Now all you have to do is look up all the “garage sales” where they give a way a bunch of free stuff or items at a deep discount and go “arbitrage” the difference. (Any affiliate marketer knows all about that arbitrage!)
Dying With Debt
This is a bit of a strange one. In theory dying in debt isn’t really a bad thing. If you’ve accumulated a million bucks then went crazy wild into debt towards the end in a ball of flames then that’s how it’s done!!! Definitely don’t want to die with $1,000,000 in the bank if you don’t have any family members to give it to. The flip side, if this is all student loans for a degree that didn’t help that is certainly sad and we don’t have much to add there. At this rate (we think education is massively overpriced now), the government should find a way to have the money forgiven.
Women Value a Man’s Wallet
All we will say is yep! If you’ve got 7 figures in the bank you’re always a seven! Instead of reviewing the entire post we’ll highlight the most important part of the article which is this… You have to know your income breakdown by city. Here is the general rule to follow.
“Unlike other places on the Internet, we are going to break down the income brackets for you in a simple graph.
As you can see by the graph, you need to make *at least* the median income in order to consistently date girls in the 6-7 range. If you are extremely good looking or have extremely high status (musician, DJ etc.) you can break these rules. But. Nothing else will help you if you’re below the median. If you have incredible social skills but can’t even afford to live in the city, the girl is going to ditch you. A girl who is a solid 7 still has dating options.”
School Debt Isn’t Viewed as Unattractive as Credit Card or Car Debt
This one is a bit of a head scratcher. We don’t view them as all that different. If someone decided to major in a Humanities degree that won’t make them any more money and paid $200,000 to obtain that degree… That is *worse* than having some car payment (easier to clean out). If someone has $40,000 in student loan debt but a degree in software engineering and a Career offer from Google… Well we 100% agree. Unless the debt is giving you a positive *return* we view almost all of it equally.
Summary
Now some of you are wondering why we’re linking to a personal finance blog that focuses more on saving/budgeting… Well we actually think he’s figured out how to get rich! Maybe we’re wrong but we think so (at current rates we predict he’ll become a multi-millionaire sooner than he thinks). If you can create a one time event of $75,000 in a single day (after building up an interesting business) why couldn’t you create a one time event of $750,000!!!! He could without a doubt in our mind. With that said here are the quick points:
1) You’re underpaid! Please feel free to argue against the two basic charts. And. The charts do *not* even include operating margins which means most businesses do not even take business that don’t generate a *meaningful* profit!….. 2) All you need is a credit card and internet access to obtain the ability to generate $2,000 in “one time” event…… 3) not being able to come up with $100 in 30 days is just a lie unless someone is lazy….. 4) women value money surprise surprise, a “politically incorrect truth” just like how men value looks (another shocker!)….. 5) unless debt is *earning* you a return it isn’t good debt plain and simple to us!….. 6) one of our young smart readers should use our outline and figure out a way to use his giveaway to start a biz!
