Neville's Financial Blog

So I'm just chillin when I get this text message from my buddy Tim Sykes:

...instead of just emailing him back, thought I'd make a post about it.

I didn't speak with him on the phone about this, and have no idea what he'll be presenting on The Today Show, so I thought I'd make my own criteria based on what I THINK he is requesting.

I'm presuming he's asking how a person of average ability can make $100 in 24 hours in a legal way without many resources, specialized knowledge or abilities.

Remember, you can see how much money you will make by evaluating the amount of service you give to others. Since $100 is a small sum of money, these are all usually small-scale jobs that only provide a marginally important service.

So here we go:

1.) Selling bottled water
I'll start with this example simply because I've proven this can make money in The Bottled Water Experiment and Part Deux. If you don't partner with a homeless guy like I did, the profits could easily be $100 on a good day. In one of the undocumented attempts of this experiment Barry The Bum made $60 by himself in one day, and would have made $100 profit if half the money didn't go to me.

2.) Painting curb addresses
I pseudo-tried painting curbs and found out it wasn't all that hard. It may take some trial and error testing at first, but in a day a person can easily make much more than $100 in a day. In fact one of the readers of this blog (a college student) makes $80,000/year doing this very thing. At $25/house making $100 in a day should be simple.

3.) Manual labor for a store
I've personally seen and spoken to bums on the street who do this from time to time: help out a store in exchange for cash. Often stores with have a very messy back-room area or trash area in the back. If you're willing to clean this area up, the store manager wouldn't mind hiring you for a small fee. Usually the bums I've seen get these small jobs are employed to break down boxes that are being sent for trash or recycling. Glamorous? No. But asking around at a few local businesses if they can part with $100 in exchange for your services can work. Keep in mind they're going to want to pay you low as possible, lower than $8/hour.

4.) Selling goods from your state surplus store
When something gets confiscated or lost at a state building or airport, it all ends up at your state Surplus Store. I did an experiment to see if I could sell confiscated stuff from the airport and it worked. Selling these goods over eBay obviously wasn't a one day affair, but perhaps you could get lucky, find some good stuff and sell it at a pawn shop or flea market.

5.) Pawn or Ebay your stuff
Self explanatory. You got junk, trade it for around market price for cash or PayPal funds. This isn't really "making" money, so I'm not sure if this will qualify for Tim's list.

6.) Power washing driveways and houses
I've also actually performed this a long time ago (unfortunately it went undocumented). I borrowed a power washer from a friend, rolled it around a neighborhood and asked people if they wanted their driveway power washed. My only cost was $2 worth of gasoline, and you can power wash a driveway for $45, and a house for well over $100.

7.) Mow lawns.
This one's pretty obvious.

8.) General help wanted post
Post an ad on Craigslist in the "Gigs" section or alike saying something along the lines of, "Hard working, general help for one day. Will do anything (legal) for 8 hours. Price $100." I've seen posts like this on Craigslist, and based on my experiences from finding ANYTHING on Craigslist, it's highly likely you can find someone who needs some general help for the day.

If you have some special talents, abilities or skilled set of knowledge, you probably stand an even better chance of #8 working. If you know how to setup Quickbooks for a business, or are good with computers etc. you can post those qualifications (and command a higher price).

9.) Experiments on college campuses
Go to the psychology building of many college campuses and scout for flyers boasting "get paid for research." I used to participate in these experiments if I had some free time. They usually pay between $10 and $25 for an hour or two of your time. This suggestion is more wishful thinking than the others. Yes, it COUULLDD make $100, but it's unlikely you'll make more than $30 in a day (if you are even lucky enough to catch an experiment taking place on a certain day).

10.) Bum it....creatively
I've always wanted to try this out, and would LOVE to see it done. Make a big ass card board sign that says "NEED $100 FOR (insert purpose here)" and then draw one of those fundraiser thermometers next to it. Stand on corner and basically fly the sign like bums do.

I never give money to bums, but would probably toss a few bucks someone's way if they had a sign that said "Need $120 more for rent" and showed their progress through the day. Whenever someone gives you money, use a Sharpie to bump up the amount on the sign. After the bottled water experiment I got to know a lot of bums and see who gives what at the street corners, and sincerely think this suggestion could make $100 quicker and with much more ease than any other suggestion! Artist rendering of what it might look like:

Anyhow, there you go Tim; my suggestions for how anyone could make $100 in a day.
-Nev

Labels: business ideas, Money Experiments

Perusing Digg I found this article on Yahoo that lists the agencies that sell all the confiscated stuff at airport security lines. The majority of the confiscated items are knives or other sharp objects like box cutters and scissors.

I noticed my local government agency that sells all these items back to the public called the Texas Surplus Store was not even 5 miles away from where I live, so I paid them a quick visit. I wasn't sure what I'd find there.

I went there and it was a large warehouse with some airport confiscated stuff in the front, and a giant warehouse full of furniture, industrial machinery, cop car parts and other random stuff. Everything there was either retired government equipment, foreclosed items, defaulted loan items or seized property....all at super discounted prices. This government agency gets all the stuff, and it's their purpose is to get rid of it quickly. It reminded me of a big pawn shop, except much cheaper.

Ever lost your sunglasses in a city or state building or airport? If no one steals them first, they end up here...for $1 a piece!

FYI, if you lost your $200 titanium Maui Jim sunglasses in the Austin airport a little while ago....I just bought them, for $1.00!

Had a pocketknife, box cutter, nail clippers or scissors confiscated at the airport? You can buy them back here for about $0.25 to $1/piece. There's big tubs full of THOUSANDS of them.

---------

So the reason I went here was to see if any money can be made from these items by reselling them on eBay. Something that caught my eye were these big bags of assorted pocket knives for $10. I couldn't count how many each bag had inside, but it was a lot. So as a little money experiment I bought a $10 bag of knives plus one Leatherman Micra pocketknife for $5 (just to get more keyword searches on eBay).

I counted all the knives, and it turns out I got 74 knives for $10. The extra Leatherman knife made it 75 knives total.

I took some pictures of the knives for the eBay auction, and I found out it's actually a pretty boring process trying to open up 75 pocket knives, so I just opened up some of the larger ones for a more dramatic picture effect. There were actually some very high quality knives in there, I was impressed.

Then I went ahead and stuck the whole lot of 75 knives on eBay with a $10 minimum bid and flat $10.95 shipping charge. :
eBay Auction 170168750293

I also went ahead and made a quick video of the knives, slapped it on YouTube and posted it in the auction:



In a few days I'll see how much this $15 experiment returns!

-----UPDATE 11-20-2007-----
The eBay auction bid up to $26.55 + $10.95 shipping for a total of $37.50.

It cost me:
$10 purchase price
$12 shipping
$1 fees
-----
Total costs: $23.00
Bought for: $37.50
-----
Total Profit for Experiment: $14.50

Labels: Money Experiments

When I first started House Of Rave I was in high school and going to college soon. I didn't have the space to store inventory or the money to buy it.

To solve this I used a drop-shipping business model where I sell stuff, but send the order elsewhere to be fulfilled. This worked very well because I could concentrate on the marketing aspects and not worry about inventory.

Managing inventory is very difficult and generally incurs lots of over head costs. I'd rather leave this to the pro's and focus on what I'm good at. However since I've never kept inventory myself, I decided I wanted to give it a try. So I decided to perform an inventory experiment with a cheap, small and convenient product.

Temporary Tattoos.

If you go to Google and search 'Barbed Wire Tattoo', HouseOfRave comes up on the first two image results:

The images take you to the barbed wire tattoo page.
Those pictures were taken by me about two years ago when I was doing some product photos. I put a temporary tattoo on my roommates arm and took these photos to show what the product would look like when used. Since then they've jumped to the top of the image results for people typing in 'Barbed Wire Tattoo' and 'Barbed Wire Armband' and other various searches.

The search results vary from time to time, but I get a lot of searches for those keywords coming to HoR. However since I've switched suppliers, the new supplier doesn't carry temporary tattoos, so I was forced to pull those items. However I still wanted to capitalize on the traffic the tattoo pages and images were pulling in. My new supplier offered to carry the product, but this was an optimal product to try something with.

So the Tattoo Inventory Experiment was born. I basically bought a bunch of temporary tattoos from the manufacturer of them and send them out from my house.
Since the tattoos are extremely light and thin, I can keep tons of them without a lot of space. They also sell for over a dollar a piece plus shipping, but cost me only a few cents each.

My 'warehouse' is an old shoe box, my 'storage racks' are just labeled envelopes, and my 'shipping department' is a box of envelopes and some stamps. Basically a mini-business in a box!

So when I get an order which includes a temporary tattoo, I simply write out the customers address on the envelope, insert the tattoo, slap on a stamp and send it from the mailbox at my house.

Getting into the real nitty-gritty numbers of the order costs:

--Cost per tattoo: $0.20
--Cost per envelope: $0.02
--Cost per Stamp: $0.39
--Total Cost for One Tattoo Shipped: $0.61

HoR automatically adds a standard shipping fee to the price of the tattoo, so usually people order other items plus a tattoo. Perhaps I should make it really cheap if someone orders only the tattoos. This way I can entice more buyers who simply want the tattoo and nothing else from the site.

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The next step was uploading all the new tattoos to House Of Rave and create product photos. This went relatively quickly since it's all the same type of product. Photoshop editing took the longest.

All the final tattoo images can be seen on the temporary tattoo page.

Setting up this whole thing took me about one day. The total cost for everything was $60. So far I've already sent out a few tattoos via this method. It's not the most professional way of sending a product (the tattoos arrive to the customer in a hand-written envelope with no packing slip) but it's just a small experiment. Of the 200+ tattoos I have in 'the warehouse' I only need to sell about 30 or 50 of them to break even.

Managing my 'warehouse' in a shoebox is easy, but if I had larger products and THOUSANDS of them, it would be a nightmare!

Labels: eCommerce, house of rave, inventory control, Money Experiments

When I was in high school, EVERYONE had started a "Web design company" at one point.

It's such a simple way of making money that seems to have been lost in all the talk of "AJAX" and "user generated content." Web design is simple. You make a website, someone pays you...done.

A lot of people are caught up in this Web 2.0 mentality crap where you create a massively popular social website or widget, then start making money somewhere down the line. The chances of success in this case are astronomically slim. People also get caught up trying to start some lame business which I think Ramit explains very nicely.

I have never learned how to program or even fully use HTML, but thanks to Frontpage, Dreamweaver, Wordpress etc. you don't really have to know too much detail. Any kid with some simple web design experience can make good money like this.

I used to utilize a guerilla marketing method for web design, and it would bring in pretty good cash for a relatively simple service. Nowadays with content management systems, CSS and all that other dynamic content stuff, it's easier than ever.

Here is an example of what I would do:

1.) Find restaurants /businesses with no webpage. CitySearch.com is a great place to start. I generally focused on restaurants at the time.

2.) Scope out the restaurant and obtain one of their menu's.

3.) Buy a domain name with the restaurants name in it.

4.) Design and host their website, including their full menu and some pictures, information about the restaurant etc..

5.) When finished with the website (They still don't even know I've done this)...Contact the person in charge of the restaurant.

6.) Give them the one line sales pitch......"If you like www.TheirWebsite.com, pay me $XXX.XX and $XX.XX for hosting."

Charging $15/month for hosting would often make me more money than the actual webpage over a few years.

7.) COLLECT CASH.

Designing an entire custom webpage for someone who may not buy is just crazy, so to streamline the process I made a templated page that could be outfitted with a different name for each different restaurant. Just change the name, contact info, opening/closing times etc. and I was done.

Nowadays you can go to

www.TemplateMonster.com and just pick out a fantastically designed web page specific to your field (Real estate, restaurants...) for less than $50 and outfit it with the business name and content....EASY! Like this...

THE BEST PART is this method can be used with mechanic shops, restaurants, lawyers, law firms, dentists, doctors, retail stores, real estate agents...you name it. MOST small businesses don't always need a crazily complicated website. They often just want SOME online presence to state their location, contact information, rates, menu, open hours and such.

This way of getting web design contracts is MUCH easier than putting out ads on Craigslist or hunting for business....because the webpage is ALREADY made, meaning the buyer sees it, likes most of it...and only minor changes are generally made.....and if they want more changes, then you charge them accordingly. You can upsell services such as search engine optimization, hosting, custom design, changes. This method of selling also doesn't require you to have an established portfolio of websites.

If the owner totally rejects the offer, ohh well....the only thing lost was $9 for the domain name and a few hours of work (if even). I'd say I had over an 80% success rate selling websites like this.

Essentially this is very simple web design, but it's ACTIVE SELLING rather than passive.

-----------------------

Instead of trying to jump straight to opening an online retail store or some other scheme to make money online, this is a GREAT way for someone young or old to get started, and you will learn tons along the way.

Labels: eCommerce, Money Experiments

I’m in Vegas right now, and looking for some sort of money experiment to perform.

I’ll give it a $200 budget (Courtesy of Interest.com)

There’s tons of little gambling experiments I can do, but I want something relatively unique or fun.

-Two spins of $100 on black?
-Couple pulls of the high stakes slots machines?
-200 $1 slot machine pulls?
-Sports bet?
-Quick go at the high stakes tables?
-?????

I need ideas!

Labels: Money Experiments

I've spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on speeding tickets, parking tickets, defensive driving, deferred adjudication etc. over the years...pretty much wasted money.

I've heard a million different people tell me about ways to weasel out of a ticket, and with the latest ticket I got this week, I'm going to give it a try.

I was caught doing 15 mph over the limit in a speed trap, meaning one officer clocked my speed, then another one pulled me over.


What I've heard over and over but without any FIRST PERSON EVIDENCE is that you contest the ticket, and if the officers don't show, the ticket is dismissed. I've heard this is typically what lawyers do to get tickets dismissed...if the officer shows up for the hearing, they reschedule up to three times until the officer is unavailable on one of the three occasions. I figure

I could give this a try instead of immediately having to pay $300+ for the deferred adjudication process. If I'm not completely mistaken, this is the way I think the Texas traffic system works:

I'll test my luck with this because there were TWO officers involved....meaning if both don't show up, the ticket gets dismissed......I think.

I've already taken defensive driving once this year, so my only option is doing deferred adjudication which means not getting a ticket for 6-12 months....or else you pay for BOTH tickets. You still have to pay a fee for the "privilege" of going on D.A. and another fee when you complete it.

One of my concerns is knowing how the officers have shown up. Do I wait in the courtroom, wait till I see them both, then just leave? The court isn't far from me, so I might go do a little recon work first and sit in on some trials, maybe speak to a few lawyers about their methods.

I want to find out once and for all if this is actually a viable (although time consuming) method of getting a ticket dismissed!

Labels: Money Experiments

I've seen people do this all day, charge up to $40 per painting and do whole neighborhoods:
Re-painting the address numbers on curbs of houses.

I always thought this was a cool and easy way to make some extra money, but I've never given it a try. So in some spare time this week I bought some plastic stencils (About $8) and some black/white outdoor spray paint (About $10) and decided to see how hard it could be.

I took the materials outside and gave it a rough shot on some newspaper:

It was a little messy, and I had to end up cutting the stencils apart, but my first painting came out alright. Not perfect, but alright.

I then started using tape to seal any loose areas of the stencils together, and I successfully made a semi-neat spray of the numbers. This isn't hard stuff, but it takes a little trial and error testing.

I've seen lots of neighborhoods around Austin where I couldn't find a house because of the lack of address numbers, think of what would happen if a police car or ambulance couldn't find your house number.

Perhaps in the next few weeks I'll give this a shot. I tried it out on some old curbage at my apartment complex, and it turned out decent....very rough....but nothing a little practice won't clean up.

This would be an awesome way to make a good $100+ a day for a couple of high school kids or Boy Scouts. I think I'd actually like to try it myself though. I haven't had any door-to-door selling experience in over 4 years, and I kind of want to do it again.

It seems everyone nowadays is talking about "Making money doing nothing" .....which is great....but making money from good old manual labor is sometimes very rewarding!

Labels: Events, Money Experiments

Over the years I've become pretty good at search engine optimization.

I proved this in my last google experiment where I successfully dominated the keyword "Starbucks Liquor." To get where I am, I continously do Google Experiments...just to stay up-to-date.

The challenge is to get ranked high on common and saught-after keywords such as "Business". I've become an expert at ranking #1 in less common keywords, thanks to this I've never had to pay for advertising on some of my businesses. That has always been a HUGE money saver.

To further hone my knowledge of how Google works, I am doing another experiment. For some reason I want to pick on Herb Kelleher, the founder of Southwest Airlines. I met the guy as seen here:

I detailed how I met him in this post about a corporate governance conference.

My goal for this experiment is to see if NevBlog can place #1 when someone Googles in the keyword "Herb Kelleher" or "Founder of Southwest Airlines"

I'll be timing this experiment, and hopefully I will learn something new along the way.
-Nev

Labels: Money Experiments

Traffic has been such a problematic phenomenon in this country, but there have been few steps to prevent it. I want to change that.

I have long been interested in a project to get rid of useless traffic buildup on a stretch of I-35 that causes all the traffic by Downtown Austin. I've had a proposal and demonstration ready for years, but never carried through with it. I'm not doing this as a money-making venture just yet, it's just something that interests me. If it works, who knows what may follow.

A quick synopsis of the experiment:

Traffic is usually "stop and go" during rush hour, causing slowdowns, unnecessary gas usage and frustration. It generally looks something like:










The Solution:
As one car stops, the car behind it stops and so forth, creating a "Traffic Wave." To "eat" this traffic wave, simply place a slower moving vehicle that leaves plenty of space in front of it in all lanes, much like large trucks do. This effectively regulates the speed of traffic and eliminates the "stop and go" action. It also allows time for the traffic wave to be eaten. The regulating cars should theoretically create smoothly flowing lines of traffic behind them.

I got permission to take a couple of pictures and observe I-35 from three adjacent buildings: The Marriott, the Austin Municipal Water Works building and The Crowne Plaza Hotel.

All three buildings had great views of I-35, but the Marriot and Crowne Plaza offered the best view of the particular sections that cause the most buildup:

The best part about this little trip was the free stuff. Both the Crowne Plaza and Marriott were hosting business events, so I walked in like I belonged, grabbed some free food and a bottle of Sprite and walked out. I had a free lunch that day.

You can view a more complete proposal at:
http://www.nevblog.com/images/traffic/i35.html
Credit must be given to William Beaty for research and animations. Original Work

I will further pursue this experiment in my spare time. I've already done the experiment with friends and IT WORKS. Now I have to videotape it in action and convince law makers to pass legislation on it.
-----------------------------------------------

On a more financial note,
I've started trying to build up my spending account for next week as it will be pretty expensive. I plan to do a lot of wining/dining, boating, 6th-Streeting, 4th-Streeting and traveling that weekend. I've gone into super-cheap mode in order to have sufficient funds available for the weekend.

Labels: Money Experiments

The Alamo Apprentice event held by my Texas Entrepreneurs team, the Profiteers, went even better than expected.

We sold out the entire theater in no time and maxed it out till the fire code allowed, and set a RECORD IN FOOD/DRINK sales! We also sold movie prop bags for $8 each which sold out in no time also. The SouthPark Singalong was a HUGE success thanks to our great team.

The entire point of the Alamo Apprentice competition was to maximize our revenue, and we did that with flying colors over the opposing team. The lowest grossing waiter at our event sold 1/3rd MORE food and drink than the ENTIRE staff at the opposing teams event held yesterday!

Needless to say, I think our team won. We also had a very vibrant team which provided tons of great footage for the Alamo Apprentice movie being shown on April 30th. I turned myself into a walking billboard to advertise the event, and wore an afro wig just to gain more attention, but in the end it didn't matter since we already had a sold out show.

This event provided real life experience (and tons of fun) that cannot be taught in a classroom. Texas Entrepreneurs will get 50% of the revenue generated from our event. The other team has to wash dishes.

Checkout a small video of our event. (Download Here. 2.4 MB). Warning: There is some foul language in the video. You had to be there to understand how much fun the audience was having!

Labels: Events, Money Experiments

I'm involved with a group called Texas Entrepreneurs which is hosting an event: The Alamo Apprentice.

The owner of the Alamo Drafthouse (A highly successful chain of movie theaters that serve food/drinks during movies), Tim League, is acting as "The Donald" and each team is overlooked by either "Caryn" or "George"

Texas Entrepreneurs has split up into two groups, each with the goal of making more money in one night than the other. All meetings, events, boardroom meetings and shows are filmed at all times. There will be a movie made out of this and will show at the Alamo Drafthouse on April 30th.

I am on the team: The Profiteers

Our event is tomorrow. We will be hosting a SouthPark Movie Singalong (the craziest things make the most money at the Alamo Drafthouse). We are expecting a full house. Profits will come from ticket sales, props sales(for use during the movie), drink sales and food sales.

Yesterday, the opposing team (Dishwasher Productions) held their event which featured live music, comedians and a movie. We decided to sabotage them.
We scored 20 free pizzas from Gumby's Pizza, 250 wings from Plucker's, and gave out all the free food any ticket-holder could eat! This effectively reduced their food sales. Ruthless.

Today is our big event!

Labels: Events, Money Experiments

Purpose of Experiment: To prove my make money with no money business ideas can work.

Hypothesis: It is possible to take less than $10 in startup capital and make money.

Experiment: Buy a 24-pack of bottled water and sell it on the side of the road. Possibly utilize the labor of pan-handlers.

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-----------------------------

Step 1:
I went to my local H.E.B. grocery store the previous night of the experiment and purchased a 24-pack of Dasani water for $5.99.



I put the water in the fridge overnight to let it chill.




Step 2:
Quick Research.
On the way to a party, I stopped to ask a bum what would happen if I sold water by the highway alongside other bums, and it didn't seem like a pretty picture. He told me, "You are a rich college student, and the guy at the corner is trying to get a meal, the hungry guy won't be too happy with you."

To get around this, I wanted to partner with one of the regular bums who knows the in's and out's of panhandling. I made an agreement to meet at 3:00pm with this guy, William Austin to sell bottled water with me. I told him whether we sold all the water or not, I would give him $10 for his help.

The picture didn't come out so well, but in person he was all smiles and very jovial.

I also didn't want to get arrested or fined. A few nights ago I stopped to ask two very courteous police officers what they would do if they saw me selling water without a permit. One replied, "I can't speak for every officer, but personally I wouldn't bother you unless you start causing problems."

So I now had a partner and no real threat of legal action. The experiment was on for 3:00pm on Sunday Afternoon!


Step 3:
An hour before the experiment I bought two bags of ice for $1.29 each. I packed the ice and water into a cooler.



I could only fit 15 bottles in my cooler, so I improvised and put the remaining 8 bottles directly into the ice bags with ice. I then double wrapped them with clean garbage bags for easy carrying.




Step 4:
Withdrew $20 in case I needed change and to pay my partner.


Step 5:
I made this nifty "Water $1" t-shirt by taking on old shirt, turning it inside out (it had a logo on the front) and using a permanent marker to write on it.

I had a feeling this little gimmick would work very well.


Step 6:
Went out to go SELL SOME WATER. I went to look for William Austin at 3:00pm by the local Blockbuster like we agreed. When he didn't show up I asked another bum to show me where he lived. I found him under a bridge, red-eyed and looking extremely tired. He hardly remembered who I was and said he had to cancel on me.



Step 7:
A bit disappointed, I went alone to the highly trafficked intersection of I-35 and Riverside Drive. There I met a bum named Barry:

I've seen Barry before. He is one of the bums that holds funny signs like, "I gave up caviar for Lent" and "I need new wheels for my limo"

I told Barry about my water experiment, and promised to give him $10 for an hour of his time/expertise, regardless of how many bottles he sold. He was more than happy to help. We shook on the deal and became instant business partners!



Step 8:
START SELLING. Barry knew a little about water selling. He told me to hold three bottles at once and start walking down the idle lanes of traffic yelling "Water Water!" Barry put the "Water $1" shirt on and started selling water like a champ! I stood on a different corner in my plain clothes and started selling. My first sale came within 6 seconds of starting (and it was a $2.00 sale!)





In less than 30 mintues we sold all 24 bottles.

Click HERE to see a video of Barry in action. (1 MB video)

Click HERE to see our progress after about 25 minutes. (1.5 MB video)



Step 9:
Tabulate results:


BOTTLES SOLD:
Me: 14 Bottles
Barry: 10 Bottles

So to make a better profit, one would need to: Preferably perform the experiment by themselves, buy cheaper water, buy only one bag of ice instead of two, buy more than 24 bottles.


CONCLUSION: Selling bottled water can be much more lucrative than sitting on your couch on a lazy afternoon!



UPDATE: Bottled Water Experiment Part 2

Labels: Money Experiments

My two monitors on Ebay sold:

• 18.1" Atec - Fetched $340 in cash. I will deliver it to buyer as they live only 2 miles away from me.
• 17" Samsung - Got $218 + $25 in shipping via PayPal.

+ =

On a different note, I will still be carrying through with my bottled water experiment this weekend. One thing that is driving me to do this is a consensus of all my successful family friends. They all have completely different methods to their success...BUT...in conversation, every single one of them has at one point said, "I can sell anything."

Can I sell anything? We'll see.

I tried to get a partner for this experiment, but I got no takers. I will be standing at an intersection with bums that over 13,000 University of Texas students pass by everyday. This doesn't exactly do wonders for your social life.

But hey, embarassment is in your head and money is green. (Tasteless Joke: I guess that's what strippers say all the time!)

Labels: Money Experiments

I enjoyed doing my lottery experiment, now it's time to venture out and do something more practical. I took a look at some of my Make Money with No Money ideas, and I want to back my advice by actually doing them (I've done most, but not all).

The one I am leaning towards: Selling bottled water. I will NOT be obtaining a license for this, therefore I am limited to low-regulated areas. There happens to be an intersection right near my apartment which is relatively lowly-regulated (and in turn has lots of bums no matter what time of the day).

I will speak to some officers in the area, asking them about the legality of my experiment. I don't want to be fined or arrested (although that would provide for some interesting journalism!)

I will try to turn about $5 into $24 by selling individual bottles of water on the side of the road. Some call this being a bum, some call it desperate, I call it learning.

It would actually be easier to make more money by increasing the hours I work, but this experiment is to prove that you can make money without a job or much startup capital.

If anyone has ever done this, drop me some recommendations for effective selling!

**Update: I performed this bottled water experiment already.

Labels: Money Experiments

Observation: Popularity of scratch-off lottery tickets remains high despite their low odds of winning. The attraction of exponentially increasing an "investment" of $1 with no skill involved draws people to these games.

Hypotheses: If a $1 scratch-off lottery game is played 100 times, the player is likely to lose money in the end. Most people playing the game will eventually lose money, only a few will gain.

Variations: A player can potentially win a large sum of money on the first play with some "luck" on their side.

Experiment: 100 Texas Lottery scratch-off "Amazing 8's" games costing $1 each will be purchased. 20 games will be purchased from 5 seperate establishments. Amazing 8's have odds of 1 in 4.65 games at least break even.
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Step 1
I withdrew $100 in cash from an ATM and bought 20 Amazing 8's from each of these five establishments: Albertson's, Chevron, Diamond Shamrock and Exxon. The whole process took me an hour as some places I visited did not have Amazing 8's.

Step 2
Counted and verified that I had exactly 100 Amazing 8's scratch-off lottery tickets.



Step 3
Got my trusty tools ready: Two quarters. One is an American quarter and the other is a Canadian Quarter. I've found that Canadian quarters are much better for scratching mass amounts of lotto tickets!

Step 4
Start scratching! I would scratch and scratch until I found a winner, which would then be placed inside the "Winner$" basket.

Scratching 100 lottery tickets is NOT as exciting as I thought. It felt more like a boring job. Next time I do gambling experiments, I'm goin' ta Vagas.

Winner$ basket starting to fill up with $1 and $2 wins.

The real gem of the lot was this ticket which won $60! The chances of getting this are 1 in 1,500.

Step 5
Tabulate each amount won.

Losers were placed on the table, and the proud winners were put higher up on the stool (Just for a more dramatic metaphorical effect)

Step 6
Report the totals. I came out ahead with $102! A 2% return.

The proud winners in all their glory, especially our champion: Mr. $60!

After the experiment was completed, I went to the grocery store to cash in my $102. I then proceeded to the Bank of America ATM and deposited the cash directly back into my investment account. So I performed this experiment and MADE $2 and learned a little too!

Step 7
Conclusion. This "investment" of $100 was more of an experiment and should not be used as investment advice. Anyone who invests their money in the lottery for purposes other than mild thrills and entertainment is (according to the odds) just dreaming. The odds prove that if you play long enough, you will lose 75% or more of your money. Of course you can also win a lot of money, but it's highly doubtful. I just happened to buy the right tickets at the right time for this particular experiment, but if I repeated the experiment again, I would most likely not make a profit or break even.

Hope you enjoyed the experiment, I sure did!

Labels: Money Experiments

The following is a list of several small side incomes you can make without much startup capital (or none at all). High school students, broke college students or anyone looking to score a little extra cash can take this advice. This list goes contrary to the saying "It takes money to make money". I feel there are tons of ways to make money, but people never pursue them because they seem "menial" or "not worth their time". Well here are a few things you can do to make quick cash without a formal business plan, investors or anything of the sort.

1.) Sell Water. That's right. Buy a 24-pack of bottled water, ice it, then sell on a hot day. Your $3.00 investment has turned a $21 profit in a small amount of time. This may seem like something only a bum would do, but trust me, you will learn more from this experience than in any marketing class. Water can be substituted with soft drinks, hot coco etc.
Easy Factor Rating: *****
**Tried this experiment on 4-03-2005

2.) Mow Lawns. If you don't have a lawnmower, borrow one. Go around a neighborhood offering your service. This business works particularly well for younger kids. Live in a cold area? They substitute lawn mowing with snow shovelling. You can ALWAYS get people to pay for this by lowering your price. Surprise people by offering to shovel a driveway for $3 if you are having trouble finding business. Some money is better than none, and you get plenty of excersize!
Easy Factor Rating: *****

3.) Powerwashing. Rent, buy or borrow a simple power washer and clean driveways and houses. Driveways will take 30-40 minutes depending on size. The real goldmine here is cleaning houses. This job will fetch over $100 and requires only a telescoping ladder and a bit more risk. For younger kids, their 30-40 minutes spent power washing a driveway will fetch about $20-$30. The trick here is to start off one house at a low price, then pitch to the surrounding houses showing off how clean their neighbors driveway is. Getting a company to hire you is even better. Gas stations, property management companies all need power washing services, but this may require some heavier duty equipment. Power washing can be done on any lazy Saturday afternoon where you are doing nothing better. Take before/after pictures and show off your work during your door-to-door sales pitch.
Easy Factor Rating: ****

4.) Accounting. Know accounting? Then become a part-time book keeper for a small business. These part timers get anywhere from $14 to $22 an hour for their services. Accounting CAN be self-taught, but a class is recommended. I know two accountants who make very nice livings working out of their garage. I see ads in the paper looking for part time book keepers all the time. You can educate yourself or hone your knowledge for free with books from the library.
Easy Factor Rating: *

5.) Get a job. Duh. If you feel totally inadequate to take a little risk and make money for yourself, or you need a more steady income, just get a small job. Even though I make enough money on the side, I still hold a job for the added income. If you are not picky about your job and just need some quick income, work at a coffee house, or in fast food etc. Get a job as a janitor, helping hand etc. These areas are always looking for non full time employees. You can get hired very quickly if you apply to those types of positions. Jobs are great, but you must obey the orders of others, often perform duties you may dislike and revolve around someone else's schedule. The other ideas on the list give you more freedom to wheel and deal as you please.
Easy Factor Rating: *****

6.) Computer Cleanup. If you are decently computer savvy, charge a small fee for cleaning up slow running computers. My old 800Mhz Dell desktop can still outperform most personal computers that are four times as fast because I keep in squeaky clean of viruses, spyware, adware etc. Go door to door asking "Is your computer annoyingly slow? Got crap popping up on your screen all the time? Well I can help you solve that problem in 20 minutes." I figure you will get quite a few people who would pay $10 - $20 (Or way more!) for your few minutes of service. Simply install all Windows Updates on their computer, install Google Pop-Up Blocker, download and run the new Microsoft Anti-Spyware program and BAM....more efficient computer. I do this for friends all the time, and they can never thank me enough for saving them the frustration of a brand new computer that runs painfully slow because of spyware. I see a huge market for this service. This is a GREAT way for a computer savvy student to make some quick ca$h. Total costs for software = $0.00. Every program I mentioned was 100% free. Who says it takes money to make money??
East Factor Rating: ****

Of course these are only a select few ways to generate small amounts of cash. These ideas will most likely not get you rich, but making cash is better than sitting around and being idle! Also, the experience you gain from trying out these ideas is more valuable than anything learned sitting in a classroom.

Now go out there and make some !!!

Labels: business ideas, Money Experiments

This blog will be dedicated to tracking my financial progress. Today I turn 22, let's see how far I can financially advance by the time I am 23.

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