Saving Money - $100 Per Hour
To Swim In Your Own Pool?

Is saving money on the things you buy important to you? Then start by being honest about what things really cost you. To understand how difficult (and crucial) this can be, consider the following example.

Saving Money - The Swimming Pool Story

Marty and his wife June loved the idea of having a built-in swimming pool in the back yard/patio area. It would improve the house and be a great way to relax on hot summer evenings. As it was, they were going to the sports complex almost every week, to use the pool there for $7 each. They figured they would be saving money on that with their own pool.

The pool they wanted would cost $50,000 according to the first quote they got. This included all the tile work around it and the finishing touches - everything. Fortunately they knew enough to get two more quotes, and finally found a company that would charge just $40,000 for the whole job.

Soon they refinanced their house, to pull out $40,000 in equity. The pool was done on schedule and on budget, although they did spend another $2,000 for the extras they wanted. Over all they were very happy with their new swimming pool.

They used the pool almost every night for the first summer. But the second year they used it less often, and even grew a little bit tired of the work required. Chlorine monitoring was necessary, filters needed to be changed, leaves needed to be cleaned out, and more.

Marty did most of this work himself to save money. But it still cost over $800 per year for heating, treating and caring for the pool. By the fourth year, the thrill was gone, and they realized they had used the pool just eight times that year. Saving money on it became more of a priority, so they stopped heating it when they weren't using it. Of course this meant it was difficult to use the pool spontaneously (it took a long time to warm it up).

What if you knew ways to spend less on almost everything? What would you do with the money you saved? Travel? Buy something nice for someone you love? Cut your hours at work and relax a little more? The possibilities are endless.

There are more than 400 ways to save money listed in Part Two of the book, including ways too get free dental x-rays and tire repairs.

The real value in the book, however, is in Part One. This is the part that will really change your thinking. You'll see how to get more for your money - more of what really matters to you. You'll learn about the studies in "behavioral economics," how that research is being used to manipulate you, and what you can do about it. You'll learn the "7 Keys" as well

Jeff got a new job in year five, and they had to move. They had to clean and repair the pool cost, which cost about $1,000. It was necessary to get the house ready to sell. This, with the $4,000 in annual costs over the years, added up to $5,000. They also paid $14,000 in interest over the five years, for the money they borrowed to put the pool in (7% annual interest). June was shocked when Marty showed her on paper that it had cost them $19,000 to use of the pool for the five years they had it.

Even worse, the pool didn't add as much to the value of the home as they hoped it would. Swimming pools have value, but a $40,000 pool won't necessarily make people pay $40,000 more for a home. The real estate agent figured the swimming pool added $20,000 to the market value of the house. As it turned out, their home sold for about $20,000 more than a similar one - without a pool - down the street.

Thinking about their "dream pool" Jeff took out a pen and a piece of paper, and started to add up the times they and their friends had used it. It was used for a total of just 400 hours during the five years they had it. Then he added up the costs to maintain the pool ($4,000), repair costs ($1,000), interest costs ($14,000), the capital loss ($20,000), and the extras they bought ($2,000). He arrived at a figure of $41,000, and divided this by the 400 hours of use.

He told to his wife, "The pool costs us $102 per hour." They had been saving money by not paying $7 each to use the health club pool, of course, but they could have paid that every week and taken a week-long vacation to Hawaii every year and still spent less. This was depressing, especially when Marty thought about the time cleaning and caring for that swimming pool.

You can see that saving money on what you buy involves more than good shopping skills. You also have to look at the true cost of the things you buy and do, and make an honest assessment of whether they're worth it. Often there are cheaper alternatives that are just as satisfying (or perhaps more so, in the case of pools that you don't have to clean and vacations in Hawaii).

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Save Money By Knowing The Games Stores Play

Who wouldn't like to save money when shopping? But looking for sales is just a start. You also need to be aware of the games that retailers play, starting with the two common ones explained here.

Reference Price Advertising

You have seen advertising like, "Was $119. now only $89!" Similar signs will confront you once you get to the store. Interestingly, regardless of whether the retailer ever sold a single unit at the $119 price, you feel like you are getting a deal, and that is the point of this game.

States often have laws requiring that these be honest advertisements, meaning the store must have the item for sale at the stated price for a certain amount of time before they can claim that it was the "normal" or "regular" price. Of course, not surprisingly, many have it at that price for the absolute minimum time required by law. They may not actually expect to sell any at the "regular" price, since it is solely there to make you feel good about the new "sale price."

One way some retailers use this tactic is by having many similar models of a product. A furniture store might have several mattresses that are very similar, for example. Which one is on sale is rotated, so there's always one that looks cheaper than the others. If you notice this, certainly don't pay the regular price, but wait until the one you want has its turn on sale.

You can also save money in this situation by buying one of the "sale" items. Alternately, since they never expect to sell the items at that price anyhow, the store manager may give you a similar discount if you ask (or insist) for it on the one you really want.
Price Matching Scams

Stores find that it costs nothing to guarantee the lowest price in town. It may be true that they'll match any competitor's price, but then again, they will only match the price on the exact same item - and they may not carry the same models as other stores do. They're also very aware that we rarely check the prices in other stores before buying - and almost never after buying.

Consumer research shows that when a store advertises that it will match competitors advertised prices, we generally think they have lower prices than other stores. Interestingly, this impression is there even when they are one of the higher-priced stores. This is because we often just don't check the prices at other stores.

There are some customers who actually compare prices and demand a reduction. This doesn't cost the store much, and meanwhile, they can sell for more than other stores to all the "average" consumers who don't check other stores.

You might wonder if comparison shopping worth the trouble and time. A study done by the Consumer Literacy Consortium in 2002 found that buyers who spent 16 minutes comparing prices online save an average of $100 on a television. Does that sound worthwhile?

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How To Spend Less

There are thousands of answers to the question of how to spend less. But this article isn't about the specific ways to pay less for this or that item. It is about the few basic methods to spend less and still get everything you need in life.

Don't Buy It

This is perhaps the most obvious way to spend less. It is also perhaps the way that is most commonly overlooked. Whenever we buy something we clearly think it is worth the price at that moment. yet how often do we later realize that it doesn't have quite the value we thought it would have?

For example, you might buy some gadget and then notice a year later that you haven;t used it more than once. There is a simple way to avoid this: wait a week to buy. If you get in the habit of procrastinating on purchases you'll still buy the things that are truly important to you. But there are many purchases that won;t be made if you wait a week.

Then there are the things bought that are never really analyzed in terms of their total cost. You buy a snow mobile for example, and use it only eight times in the years that you own it. If you did the math you might find that it costs you $500 per use or more. So do the math!

Pay Less

This is the usual way we try to spend less. Using coupons and sale-shopping fall into this category. The following is another way that you may not have thought of trying.

Learn to negotiate. We tend to think that learning negotiating skills is for business people and those in sales, but why not for you too? If you can occasionally save $50 on a large appliance or $5,000 on a home it might be worth your time to learn a few "tricks of the trade," right? I have even paid half-price for a new book in a traditional bookstore using simple negotiating tactics.

Look For Alternatives

This is really another way to spend less for the same thing or for something similar. But it is often forgotten when we are buying things. It's easy to think that you just need to find cheaper planes tickets for you trip to Florida, for example, and forget that there are other wonderful places to go that nay cost you hundreds of dollars less.

This is true even with small purchases. You may be used to eating fresh fruit, for example, but it may be just a habit. You might enjoy blended "smoothies" in the morning just as much, and pay less for frozen fruit you use for them. Look for alternatives and you can spend less - sometimes a lot less.

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Save Money On Heating Bills

Turning down the thermostat is probably the most common tip on how to save money on heating bills. It may be a good idea, and it is true that you can put on a sweater to stay comfortable. But some people feel the cold more than others, right? And among all the ways we can save money, should giving up our physical comfort at home be one of the first things we try?

The expensive options suggested for saving money on heating bills include adding insulation to your home, buying solar panels to reduce your furnace use, and upgrading your heating system to a high-efficiency unit. Those ideas may work as well, but you may not have the money to invest. Also, the arguments for these as money-saving plans sometimes don't make sense.

As an example let's suppose you spend $20,000 to put a solar heating system on your home. It saves you half of your annual $1,200 heating cost, or $600. Now suppose you have to finance the system. The interest alone could be more than the $50 monthly savings, so you may not ever recoup your costs, let alone save any money.

You have to do the math and consider the real costs, including the interest paid if financed, or the interest lost if paid from money you have in the bank. I recently read on a solar advocacy website that a solar hot water system costs "only" $5,000 and could save 50% of the costs of running my regular hot water heater (which is still needed due to cloudy days). Now, our hot water probably costs about $240 annually, so we would save just $120 each year. We can do better than that leaving the money in the 3% account we have at our online bank! The $150 we would make annually in interest pays the extra $120 and leaves us an additional $30 versus having the solar water heater.

Insulation can be more cost-effective if you are deficient in insulation right now. There are other major upgrades that may pay off too. On the other hand, what if you haven't got the money for the big fixes and you like your home to be a warm place to live? Then you need to apply some of the following ways to save money on heating bills without spending a fortune.

- Close of any air leaks. Look for drafty areas, find the air leaks and seal them up with caulk or weather stripping. Closely check around windows and other possible openings. Three dollars of caulk might be sufficient for any and all leaks you find, and weather stripping around leaky doors is cheap as well.

- Check each room and adjust the registers as necessary. In most forced-air systems these can be opened or closed somewhat, so if you have rooms where you don't spend much time, close the vents off partly to reduce the hot air going there. It costs nothing to do this.

- Adjust drapes, blinds and curtains. If you open curtains when the sun is shining you'll notice the heating effect pretty quickly. You can also get in the habit of closing them once they are in the shade or each night after the sun sets.

- Install an electronic thermostat with a timer. A decent electronic thermostat can cost $100 or more, but they are still one of the cheaper ways to cut your heating bill by 5% or more. The timer can be set to turn the heat down at night when you are cozy in bed, to turn it up thirty minutes before you get up, and to turn it down during times when no one is home, like when you are at work

- Manually adjust the thermostat. If you want to save the cost you can do the same thing the automatic

thermostat does by adjusting the heat control whenever you go to sleep or leave the house for a while. One disadvantage: you'll have to put up with the cold for a few minutes after you wake up or get home. It is a no-cost way to save money on heating though.

How to save money on heating bills? The easiest quickest way is still the one first mentioned: turn down the heat permanently. If you do this, wearing a sweater isn't the only thing you can do to compensate. Floors sometimes chill us more than the air, so wear warm slippers or thick socks. A cup of hot tea can warm you up for an hour. Lounging in the sunniest chair is another trick. Or... find another way to save $20 per month and turn that heat back up to where it is comfortable.

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Create Wealth From Home

Create Wealth From Home

How do you create wealth from home? There are many ways - more than there have ever been before. In fact, I am sitting here in my underwear as I write this, and yes, I do make a good living with these web sites. An internet business may be one of the best ways to make money at home. Here is a short list of some other possibilities.

Other Ways To Create Wealth From Home

Invest In Real Estate - All you really need to start is some space on the kitchen table and a willingness to learn. There are free resources online to teach you how to invest - even with no money of your own. In fact, you can use the link here to get a Free Real Estate Investing Course. Or if you like the idea of fixing and flipping houses, go get a course on Flipping Real Estate.

Make A Hobby Into A Business - Think of ways to make your hobbies pay. A friend of mine made a painted plywood cow and put it in his yard. A passerby offered to buy it, so he sold it and made another. Soon he was selling them regularly. Think you can't create much wealth this way? How about paying someone to make them for you, and putting them in all the right stores?

Become An Expert Investor - More than a few people have created wealth from home by simply investing wisely in stocks. Now it is easier than ever, with all the information you need online. You will have to study well to beat the averages, but it can certainly be done from home.

Be A Copy Writer - Many companies pay big money for advertising copy. Some even pay residual income each time they use your advertising copy. There are several great courses out there that teach you how to write to sell things, and how to find clients.

Create Wealth With Your Home - The tax law now allows you to keep all your profits from the sale of your home tax-free - as long as you lived there for two years. Some enterprising people are moving from one "project" home to another every two years, pocketing as much as $100,000 in tax-free capital gains each time.

Rent Rooms In Your Home - This works especially well if you live in a college town. Even in many small towns you can get $100 per week for a room (all utilities included). If you have a spare bedroom, why not rent it out, and put that $5,000 per year straight into good investments. This is a relatively easy way to create wealth from home. Use the link here to learn all the ins and outs of Renting Rooms. (I wrote this ebook based on my experience)

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Credit Card Wealth Secrets

"Credit card wealth secrets," the advertisement read. Being a skeptic by nature, I assumed it was another unworkable get-rich-quick scheme. Then I remembered the times in my life when I have used credit cards to make money.

As Robert Kyosaki of "Rich Dad" fame says, there's "good debt" and "bad debt. Using credit for consumer items is bad-debt. Doing so limits your future options, and you get less in life. It may seem like more, because you get it now, but with interest, and the tendency to pay more when buying on credit, you'll never be able to have as much as those who pay cash.

Credit card wealth secrets revolve around the idea of "good debt." This is any debt that is used to increase your income, or produce capital gains. How do you get your credit cards to start doing that for you?

Credit Card Wealth Creation Secrets

A friend once borrowed $6,000 from me at 9% interest. I didn't have the money, but I had a credit card offer for a cash advance for 8 months at 5% interest. I loaned him the money for six months (he is extremely trustworthy). A 4% spread meant only a $120 profit in the end, but it was easy.

A better example is the little house we bought in Montana. A cash offer would get us a great price, so with our savings and $2,000 worth of repairs on a credit card, we made it work. We paid $100 in interest before selling the house a few months later for a $6,500 profit.

My money was tied up in other projects when my brother found a truck we could make some money on. I raised the money with a credit card, and paid maybe $35 in fees and interest. My brother sold the car ten days later, and we split the $950 profit.

A friend once borrowed $300 at more than 100% annual interest ($50 for two months). Why would he do that? For tools he needed to re-start his dry-walling business. He probably made enough the first week in business to repay the loan.

The point is that debt - whether from credit cards or from other sources - is good debt if it creates more than it costs. I've known people that have started successful businesses or "flipped" houses for big profits with the help of credit cards. Can you get rich quick in this way? It's doubtful, but then my skepticism almost made me forget my own "credit card wealth secrets."

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How Barter Can Help Your Business

Barter trade is a powerful instrument that represents a solution for companies with available stock or services. By accepting payment in trade money instead of cash, a business maximizes their efficiency by increasing stock turnover or billable hours. Using the trade currency earned, that company can pay for goods or services they want, without paying cash.

1. Barter Generates New Clientele:

Allowing you to increase your market and preserve your cash paying customers. This is incremental business – clients who bypass rival businesses to do business with you.

2. Barter Moves Surplus Stock:

Retailers must keep their stock moving. Barter will bring you buyers to move surplus stock, eliminating the advertising costs and weighty discounting otherwise needed to achieve this.

3. Barter Conserves Cash and Increases Profits:

Bartering creates new clients because buyers are encouraged to pay with their products or services to save cash. e.g, if you had to buy a photocopier for £1500, what would you rather do? Write a cheque or pay with an equal amount of your product or service at its normal selling price to a new customer? Most businesses prefer to trade and preserve cash.

4. Networking Expands Your Customer Base:

Barter customers will bring you all of the cash referrals that your present clients bring. You will gain new cash paying customers too - as long as you give your barter customers the same great services and pricing as you offer everyone else.

5. Increase Productivity by Filling Downtime and Unused Capacity:

Service Business: Increase billable hours! If you are not at 100% capacity twelve months a year and can handle new customers, you fill your idle time with new business opportunities. Now you will have trade currency to purchase what you need.

I have started a online community forum that is specifically for people want to start Bartering or even for people who Barter already view our site

The Barter system is a fantastic opportunity for people to gain what they want by offering what is some surplus stock or some time.

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Residual Income

What is residual income? It is easy money - well, not quite. It may require quite a bit of effort up front to create streams of residual income. But the important point is that this is income which continues to come in long after your work has ended.

Here is an example from my own experience. A couple years ago I decided to make a web site about carpet stains. I bought lunch for the owner of a carpet cleaning company, in exchange for some tips on how to remove various stains, and how to care for carpet in general.

I spent a week building the site initially (I was slow then), and twice over the last couple years I have spent a few hours updating the site. I might have put as much as 50 hours into the site now, but I have left it untouched for as much as nine months at a time. In fact, as I write this, I can't remember the last time I even looked at it online. The result? It generates about $200 most months, from automated advertising and affiliate programs that don't require my attention.

That is residual income, and you can see the advantages. I put the effort in up front, but I'm still getting paid now. If my wife and I are visiting family in Ecuador, we are still making money. We have web sites that do much better than this one, but I like this as an example, because it requires virtually no attention. How would you like to have a couple dozen web sites like that?

Other Sources Of Residual Income

Here are some of the ways that other people generate residual income. Some of these might require some attention, but if there is enough income, you can pay for someone to manage it for you, as in the first example.

Income Producing Real Estate - Buy an apartment building, put management in place, and have the cash flow deposited into your account. This is a classic form of residual income. Just be sure there is going to be enough income to cover the management fees too. This is getting harder to find in may areas, but it is crucial. Otherwise, you lose money or manage it yourself, in which case, instead of investment income, you just bought yourself another job.

Invent Things - Not an easy field to get into, but this could be a fun one. Inventors often license their inventions to companies, which means that as long as they keep selling, the originator has a stream of royalty fees coming in.

Write A Book - Traditionally, authors get about 5% of the retail price of a book. Some authors are still collecting checks from books they wrote 50 years ago. Set up a web site and sell e-books, and you can keep 90% of each sale. Nothing to ship, and if you have a processor handle the orders (that's where most of that other 10% goes), you won't have to do much more than answer an occasional e-mail.

Make Music - Musicians get royalties as long as people still want to hear their songs. Song writers do as well.

Insurance Sales - Sell a policy once, and you normally get a commission every year that the person renews. Some insurance agents retire young with a healthy stream of residual income.

Other Investments - Dividends can be considered residual income. So can income-producing stock and bond funds. If the value of the underlying investment rises, the dividend may rise too, meaning you may eventually be getting very high returns for your initial investment.

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Day Trading

Day Trading

Day Trading
The Ultimate Work-From-Home Job?
by Harvey Walsh

Ever dreamt of giving up the daily grind? Want to strike out on your own and work from home, but don’t know what you could possibly do to make a living? Full time Nasdaq trader Harvey Walsh wondered just that, and now he asks “Is day trading the ultimate work from home job”?

We’ve probably all had the same thought at some time or another, as we trudge off towards another day at work – the same work we’ve been doing day in day out for years – “surely there has to be a better way?” Slaving away to make somebody else rich just doesn’t seem right somehow, but what alternative? Setting up a new business, or buying an established one, are both expensive and risky prospects. So how can the disenchanted employee ever hope to make the switch from wage-slave to total independence?

Those are thoughts I had almost every day, before I quit the safety of full time employment and decided to strike out on my own. I asked myself the same question day in and day out; surely there has to be a better way. What about the internet, I wondered, isn’t that supposed to be bringing new and exciting opportunities to all? I researched a lot of so-called work-from-home opportunities that promised untold riches, apparently mine for the taking just by sitting in front of my PC. Needless to say, in reality those schemes turned out to be about as fulfilling as, well, filling envelopes for a living. No, I knew there had to be another way – something real – something where I could be in control of my own destiny.

And then one morning on the train to work, I read about a couple of Wall Street boys who had struck it rich thanks to some huge bonuses, and were now going it alone setting up their own day trading shop. That was when I discovered day trading, and I realised that this was exactly the opportunity I had been searching for. I decided there and then that I was going to make a full time living from the stock markets, whatever it took to succeed.

The advantages of day trading as a job are numerous to say the least; there is no boss to answer to, no customers to satisfy, no suppliers to let you down, no waiting for invoices to be paid, I could go on. In fact, I will: trading is a location-independent activity – I can work from anywhere with an internet connection, which effectively means anywhere in the world with a telephone line. I regularly trade from my laptop whilst travelling. I can trade when I feel like it, and take time off when I like, which means I can spend quality time with my family.

A Book of Secrets
How To Read Minds, Boost Brainpower, Get Lucky, See The Real News, Find Treasure, Buy Real Estate With Zero Down, Subliminally Persuade People - And That's Just The Beginning!
Click here to learn more...

Now let’s get this straight, trading can be a risky activity, there is no doubt about that. So is driving a car to work, but the risks of getting from A to B on four wheels are well understood and are managed accordingly, to the point where we don’t think twice about getting behind the wheel. And in the same way, provided a trader is disciplined in their approach to the job at hand, and understands the associated risks of the work, so those risks can be managed.

On the subject of risk, day trading is almost unique in that it can be learnt and practised with absolutely no financial risk at all, by means of paper-trading – that is - trading using freely available simulation software. Thus in the same way a trainee airline pilot won’t be let loose into the skies without having learnt and rehearsed their skills in a simulator, so a new trader can employ the same technique before they start trading real money. I “sim-traded” before I gave up the day-job; it made it easy to leave the safety-net of a monthly pay check knowing from my simulated trading sessions that I could already make money in the markets.

And that brings me to the most satisfying aspect of trading for a living; money. On an average day trading the Nasdaq, it is not unusual to make more money in a couple of hours than I used to make in a whole month working full time as a wage-slave. There are bad days of course, days where things just don’t work out, but they pale into insignificance over the course of a week or a month. It certainly took some intensive studying and a lot of practise before becoming a consistently profitable trader. But the end result of that hard work is an immensely valuable life skill that nobody can take away, and which allows for incredible freedom.

Since I first started trading, the learning curve has become even easier for the aspiring day trader, with a multitude of new websites, training courses, and books all covering the subject. I envy anyone starting out in this business today – they certainly have many more learning aids available to them than I had at the same point in my own career.

So is day trading the ultimate work-from-home job? No. I firmly believe it’s the ultimate work-from ANYWHERE job!

About the Author - Harvey Walsh is a full time Nasdaq day trader, and part time trading tutor. He trades from his home, or indeed wherever he happens to be when travelling.

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Playing With Money

If you have money, there are options other than complicated businesses or bank C.D.'s. Also, if you have credit cards which you can get cash advances on, there are ways to pay 18% interest and still make money with the cash. Mostly these are ways that aren't quite a business because you can do them once or only when you feel like it.

Loan Sharking

There are people that occasionally need money for a short while. A friend for example, that got a good paying job because I loaned him $300 to get drywall stilts. I never charge less than a $5 / week loan fee (don't call it interest). If you have any qualms about this, check the laws in your area and put it all in writing. Also, if you want total security, take collateral.

Investing In The Expertise Of Others

My buddy John had to show me several car magazines before I understood why an old fiberglass car was a good deal at $2,300, because I know nothing about cars. He eventually convinced me to put up the money, and after a new transmission for $900, he sold the corvette for $4,300, netting us about $1,000. I took half the profit ($500) for putting up the money for the two weeks.

I've done this several times with friends that know cars but don't have cash. By the way, if I had paid 18% interest and a $50 cash advance fee to raise the money with a credit card, my profit would still have been over $400, and John did all the work. I love playing with money. Do you have any friends who know everything about boats?

Buying And Selling Estates

We recently met a couple who buy out estates, sell some of the things at flea markets, then run the rest through auctions. They've made a living doing this for years. They load up a trailer after negotiating to buy a whole house full of stuff. Then, if they don't want to do the flea market thing, they just auction everything on Sunday afternoon for a nice profit.

If you are a good judge of value and have a regular auction nearby, you could do the same with rummage sales. Just offer $100 for everything and then auction it off piece-by-piece. The auction near us lets anyone sell their stuff, with no fee to enter. They just take a 25% commission.

Playing With The Casino's Money

I worked at a casino for years and I saw a lot of people foolishly writing down the numbers that came up on the roulette wheel. Foolishly, I say, because their their theories were nonsense. Casinos will always welcome these players and even hand them the pen and paper.

One guy, however, was actually scientific about it. By finding a bias in the wheel, after "charting" it for 5,000 spins, he made thousands betting on just one or two numbers. When a number comes up, it pays 35 to 1,

but one of the numbers, because of manufacturing imperfections or whatever reason, was coming up 1 in 27 spins, instead of the average 1 in 38 spins.

So all he had to do was bet $10 a spin, and he profited $80 for every 27 spins of the wheel in the long run. That's about $100 per hour. The ups and downs are dramatic though, so this is not for the faint-hearted. In this case, I saw him lose as much as $700 in a night. Also, not all wheels have biases (they eventually replaced that wheel). So have you ever tried "card counting" in blackjack...?

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Making Money Using What You Have

Making Money Using What You Have

Sometimes you don't have to look very far to find new ways to make money. You can start making money using what you already have . Consider carefully what you can do to profitably use the things you own, the situations you are in, and the skills you have. How can you make some money from these?

NEIGHBORHOOD TAXI SERVICE

I used to pick up three or four fellow employees on the way to work at a charge of one dollar each way. Recently a neighbor paid us $30 to take her 12 miles because the cabbies here don't speak Spanish (I speak a little and my wife is from Ecuador). It may not be legal without a taxi license, but go ahead - I won't tell. There are regular newspaper ads in some areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania offering rides to the Amish residents, because most Amish will ride in cars but will not own or drive them.

SELLING YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Do you know a lot about something? I regularly pay acquaintances who know cars to help me find a good deal. It saves me money and makes them money. Do you know how to fix computers, or shingle a roof? Let people know.
DOG WALKING
Do you like to walk?... Take along some dogs at a few dollars each. This isn't all that unusual, but people in some towns still don't have this service available.


Some Money Making Possibilities
RENTING ROOMS

We've made tens of thousands of dollars over the years renting out bedrooms, even when we were living in a mobile home. We charged a weekly rate that included all utilities, making it very convenient for students and single people. I've also known of people renting a spot in the yard to somebody to park their R.V. and live in it. I once converted a shed into a bedroom and rented that out too.
RUMMAGE SALES

Find everything you don't need (maybe half of your possessions) and have a sale. We find it better to simply take it to a flea market. The fee for a spot is usually cheaper than an ad in the paper and you are guaranteed some customers if it's a good flea market. If you enjoy the process, you can start accumulating more stuff to do it all over again.
CLOSET GROCERY STORE

I used to make a little money running a "grocery store" out of two shelves in a living room closet. My room renters paid regular retail for cereal, soup, etc., that I'd buy during half-price sales. Also, selling cold pop out of the refrigerator for 50 cents was a regular source of income for years.

NEIGHBORHOOD TAXI SERVICE

I used to pick up three or four fellow employees on the way to work at a charge of one dollar each way. Recently a neighbor paid us $30 to take her 12 miles because the cabbies here don't speak Spanish (I speak a little and my wife is from Ecuador). It may not be legal without a taxi license, but go ahead - I won't tell. There are regular newspaper ads in some areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania offering rides to the Amish residents, because most Amish will ride in cars but will not own or drive them.

SELLING YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Do you know a lot about something? I regularly pay acquaintances who know cars to help me find a good deal. It saves me money and makes them money. Do you know how to fix computers, or shingle a roof? Let people know.
DOG WALKING

Do you like to walk?... Take along some dogs at a few dollars each. This isn't all that unusual, but people in some towns still don't have this service available.

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Making Things To Make Money

Making things to make money doesn't have to mean difficult crafts. Sometimes it can be just simple assembly, not artistry or craftsmanship. Here are some examples:

Make Money Making Jewelry

I have friends who make and sell elaborate, expensive jewelry. We are not as artistic, or our tastes aren't as rich, but my wife and I used to regularly make and sell pendants at flea markets and craft shows. Our jewelry only involved tying a string to a pewter figurine or to a coin with a hole in it. There's probably more money to be made in the well-crafted, fancier jewelry, but there is a market for all types.

Selling Pewter Figurines

You can buy pewter wolfs, dragons, turtles, lighthouses etc., from several companies online. Smaller pieces can be bought for about 20 cents each. My wife puts these on rocks, shells (the mermaids) and glass gems with E-6000 glue. We sell them for 2 to 10 dollars at craft shows and flea markets. The kids in particular love the dragons on glass gems or agates.

Walking Sticks

Find a friend who wants his property cleared of the weedy young poplar trees. Bring a saw and knife. I can make about forty walking sticks in a day with the easy woods, like poplar, for example. I buy old leather coats at thrift stores, cut them into strips and use this to put handgrips on the sticks (after they dry for a few weeks). The addition of wood burning, feathers, inset rocks, etc., makes some pricier, but I've had best luck

with the $14-and-under sticks. I've sold them for up to $22 and wholesaled them for as little as $4 (very basic ones). We sell them at craft shows and flea markets and have wholesaled them to buyers who sell them at pow-wows and gun-and-knife shows.

PVC Bow And Arrows

Cut a piece of half-inch plastic pipe to about 3 feet long, put a slit in each end and put a piece of nylon twine on it. It is now a bow. I know a man who sells these for $6 at pow-wows and flea markets. He dresses them with colored tape and includes one arrow made from a dowel and pointed pencil eraser.

I'll include more ways to make money making things in the future, so check back.

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Money Making Hobbies

Money Making Hobbies

You never know which could be the money making hobbies. A friend of mine made a life-sized cow out of plywood once. After painting it up and putting it out in the yard, he started to get people stopping by to see if he would sell it. He loved working with wood, and soon had a waiting list of customers for his plywood cows. At about a fifty-dollar profit each, he wasn't going to get rich, but isn't making money with your hobby more fun than a job?

More Money Making Hobbies

There are two basic ways to approach this. The first is the obvious: Look for a way to make money with your hobby or hobbies. What does your hobby produce or involve that other people might want? If the only hobby you have is watching and talking about auto racing, you could start a website about the topic. I'm just sitting here talking about unusual ways to make money, and every time someone clicks on one of the ads here, I might make money.

The second way to money-making with hobbies is to think of all the hobbies you might take up that can generate a second income for you. I found that I really enjoyed making walking sticks as a hobby, and I sold more than a thousand dollars worth on summer. Are there things you might enjoy doing that can make some money as well? Probably.

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Time to get creative. Scan the list of activities or hobbies below, and see if you can think of a way they can be used to make money. If you like to travel, you might become a tour guide, for example.

Painting

Crafts of all sorts

Sewing

Caring for animals

Talking

Playing with computers

Traveling

Rock Climbing

Stamp Collecting

I'll add to this page, so be sure to check back. Also, remember that almost all hobbies can be money making hobbies now, simply by writing all about them on a website, and collecting for the advertising clicks. I'll cover that in the future too.

Related page: Waking Sticks - A Money Making Hobby ; Walking sticks became a money making hobby for me one summer. Here's how I made them and sold them.

Learn How To Make Money In Real Estate with the ebook 69 Ways To Make Money In Real Estate. Some of the ways covered are low-investment and suitable as a hobby or part-time project.

Unusual Ways To Make Money | Money Making Hobbies

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Walking Sticks
A Money Making Hobby

I didn't plan on carving walking sticks as a money-making hobby. I sometimes made walking sticks when backpacking, and I had always enjoyed taking my pocket knife to a piece of wood to see what I could make. I hadn't thought of doing anything more with the hobby.

Then, when my wife and I briefly got into the flea market business, I noticed the occasional vendor who sold walking sticks. If the event was more of an arts and crafts show than a flea market, they even sold them for as much as $50 each. My wife Ana suggested that we could sell them too, so I went to work.

With a short saw I could cut 20 or young poplars in an hour, and get two sticks out of half of them. My favorite wood, though, was white cedar. In the Cedar swamps near our home, it grew straight and died young from overcrowding. Cedar wood remains solid for many years after dying, so I could quickly cut many perfectly dried sticks.

Soon there was a pile of wood shavings behind the house, as I cut the bark off and carved each stick into various forms. Many were just rounded off on top. Others I cut into a spiral, or pyramidal shape. I put padding and leather covers on some, and drilled out the tops to inset nice stones on others. This is a hobby that lets you really exercise your imagination.

All the walking sticks were wrapped with leather near the bottom, to prevent splitting, and most had leather handgrips. The leather was from old leather coats I bought at thrift stores. It was attached with both glue and small nails. Each stick had about fifty cents in materials in it at most.

A Money Making Hobby

I sold them for as little as $6 each to as much as $24. This was less than others sold walking sticks for, but then we were mostly selling them at flea markets, rather than arts and crafts shows, where they would get a higher price. I also wholesaled them to a vendor who sold them at gun-and-knife shows, and to a friend who sold them at Native American pow-wows.

How much can you make selling walking sticks? I don't know. I sold about $1200 in walking sticks that summer, before we moved on to try an internet business. They were a nice addition to our other crafts and the stuffed animals we sold at various flea markets. My advantage was that I was very efficient in making them, spending less than an hour even on the most elaborate ones.

I never sold more than $250 in walking sticks in a day, but I saw vendors who paid $300 to rent a space for the weekend (we typically paid $10/day for a flea market space), and sold only walking sticks. They were undoubtedly selling much more than I. In any case, doing something you enjoy AND making a profit is a nice advantage of any money-making hobby.

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Easy Ways To Make Money

Yes there are easy ways to make money, but this means different things to different people. Do you want easy ways to make money right now, or ways to make the most over time with the least effort. These are two very different things.

Easy Ways To Make Money Now

-Get a job. Or work more hours at your present job. Don't believe that starting a business or learning to invest successfully is easy. A job is much easier. Go to work, and get a paycheck every week or two guaranteed - that's easy!

-Sell your things. Another easy way to make money quickly is to sell whatever you don't need. Get rid of the second car, the snowmobile you never use, etc.

-Cut your expenses. Cancel cable TV, and learn how to spend less for all the things you buy. If you can spend $14 less each day on unimportant things, it adds up to over $5,000 annually. That's like making $7,000 more, since you have to earn that much to have $5,000 after taxes.

-Buy a lottery ticket. Hey, it's easy if it works, right?

Easy Ways To Make Money - Eventually

Okay, I said that the job is easier than a business, and that is true in the near-term. On the other hand, if you define easy as "the most money over time for the least effort," you need to invest or start a business. I'll tell you two stories in regards to that idea.

First, I bought my first home when I was in my twenties. It was just a mobile home on real estate, but I discovered that I could easily rent rooms. I lived for free as well as banking some of the money. This was no "get rich quick" scheme, but I made as much as $7,000 per year extra from my investment. I had to work to pay off the mortgage, but in the end I was working much less than my friends were.

The second story has to do with this internet business. I spend a lot of time writing little articles now, and distributing them. People read them, click through to my web sites from the link at the bottom, and maybe they buy a product that I get a commission on, or I get paid for the advertising there. It really is pretty easy now, but that's not how it started.

I worked at this full time from the start, and six months into it, I was making a net profit of about $2 per day. It was a bit discouraging, and I had a lot to learn. However, as it turns out, I was making something closer to $30 per hour for my time. It's just that I wouldn't be paid for the first year. I just kept building the business, and now it is pumping out the money I made from those earlier efforts. Not only that, but I can ignore it for weeks at a time and it keeps making money.

You see, that's the way it is with money. If you want more than a job will provide, you have to start a business or invest and get your money working for you. That might mean you work for free, or for a dollar per hour to start, so that you can easily collect $100 per hour down the road. If that sounds too discouraging, then so will this : Maybe there are no easy ways to make money.

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