NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Archives for 2005

Ideal Income

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As I struggle to tack some zero’s onto my bank accounts, I found this comment left on my site by Jack Miller very inspiring:

“The first $50,000 is tougher than the last $5 million.”

Tell me about it! I can also attest this is true from all the highly successful people I have spoken with, they all went through some sort of struggling period before they finally hit it big.

I’d like my first $50,000 to be made primarily by ME. This means I want to make the bulk of my money through any means other than a 9am-5pm job. I am more proud of the $5.43 I made from my water experiment than the $3,121 I have made from working at my job.

Water Reflections

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The water experiment was a success, but I got lots of emails saying that $5 in profit per hour was not worth it….some points to consider:

  • I made that money in 30 min, not 1 hour.
  • I overpaid Barry.
  • I only had 24 bottles. Lesson learned: Next time bring several cases.
  • I can get someone else to do this for me.

And the MAIN POINT: I can turn almost no money into a much larger amount now that I have learned the above lessons. That was the point of this experiment.

This could easily be a $40 an hour activity for a kid looking to score some quick cash.

Some said I was still being paid for my time much like a job. This is true. BUT….I have made an agreement with Barry to set him up with 5 cases of chilled water and a large cooler with ice. He will sell them all day from 11am till 5pm and we will split the profit.

If he simply runs away with my investment I stand to lose approx. $33:

If all goes well, I can possibly make approx. $48.50:

If Barry does all the selling, all I have to do is drive over the cooler, water and ice to his corner. Not a bad deal.

Bottled Water Experiment

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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!

You also maybe wondering how to sell bottled water yourself, well here’s a quick cheat sheet:

  • Pick a moderately hot day.
  • Buy a cheap case of water.
  • Put the water in ice an hour before you sell to cool it down.
  • Make a sign or shirt that says “Ice Cold Water $1”.
  • Stand on the busiest street corner you can find and yell “Water Water Water!”
  • Best of luck :)

UPDATE: Bottled Water Experiment Part 2

Nordstrom Return Policy Purchase

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Went to Nordstrom to pick up a pair of shorts and some new sandals for summer. Nordstrom is VERY pricey, but if you are looking for a few nice items for longterm use, I suggest buying from them for a few reasons:

1.) Service. Nordstrom’s legendary customer service has never failed to meet and beat my expectations.

2.) Return Policy. There is none. There is no time limit or reason for return needed to return an item. You can take a beaten up, dog-eaten pair of 10 year old jeans purchased from them and get a refund or exchange. Seriously.

Now, just remember, don’t buy EVERYTHING from them, just a select few high quality items from your wardrobe.

My excursion to Nordstrom cost me:

  • J.W. Nordstrom Khaki Shorts – $32.50
  • Cole Haan Leather Sandals – $145
  • Shoe shining stuff – $6
  • Tax – $15.14
  • Total – $198.64

Eat your heart out Budgeting Babe :)

Ebay Update and Water

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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!)

Water Selling Experiment

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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.

Gaining Mobility

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One thing important to me right now is mobility. I am graduating pretty soon, and if an opportunity arises in a different state, or even a different country, can I attend to it easily?

I recently moved to a larger apartment right across the hall from my old one, and the simple move took much longer than expected. Since then I have got rid of some “junk” and started to unload some more bulky items like my monitors (I’m selling them on Ebay). My plan is to fit all of my posessions in two suitcases.

A drawback to this is a rather boringly decorated room:

Not winning any “best-decorated” reviews eh? After I send my guitars and piano back home, the only bulky thing I will own are my speakers. I am a high-quality-sound-fanatic and can’t yet part with my THX certified Klipsch speakers, no matter how many neighbors they annoy!

Other than that, I can pack up my clothes and Tablet PC and leave town whenever I want.

Meeting Goals

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Look to your right. See that goal for 3-31-200 that states I should “Have made $6,500 since January 1st 2005″? Well, it’s far from complete.

According to this goal, I had 4 months to generate $6,500 and it doesn’t look like it will be fully met. Let’s predict I hit $3,000 by the 31st of this month. If I make only $3,000 every 4 months, I will be at an average of $12,000 per year. That’s only $2,430 over the federal poverty level!!!

What the hell. Even though I’m still in college, I need to make more money on the side. This is ridiculous.

The 3-31-2005 goal is to keep me on track for my $11,000 by 4-30-2005 goal, which is FAR from complete. As for meeting that goal in two days, I have some income coming in soon:

  • Approx. $250 check from work
  • At least $400 from Ebay sales ending in a few days.
  • Over $900 from my online business
  • $300 from web design project

So I have a minimum $1,850 of income within the next week. I will still have only accumulated $4,454 since the beginning of the year. To meet that $11,000 goal I really need to kick my own ass and starting making more money, even if it resorts to using my crazy business ideas.

So to sum up:

Tax Refund

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I’m no “Taxamatician” (yes, that was a joke), but isn’t a tax refund simply a REFUND of money you overpaid?

This CNN article entitled 5 Ways to Spend Your Refund shows the sentiment in America to blow your refund. According to my knowledge, this is equivelant to:

Buying $5 worth of candy with a $10 bill. When the cashier hands you back $5 in change, you think, “Hey! Free money!” and go spend it.

When you overpay for your taxes and then get some of it back, you aren’t “getting” free money. If you are going to blow your tax refund, blow it on something CRAZY like paying off debt or starting a new savings account!

The Next Big Thing

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Identify the “next big stock” or “next iPod” and get rich! Well, even Ms. Cleo can’t predict that, so an easier route is to spot upcoming trends such as the recent oil surge. Easier said than done.

I have been looking for a place to park some money for the long term, and I have come across a few trends which have the potential to explode in value:

1.) Water. Kirk absolutely loves water stocks, and for good reason. In scarce supply, drinking water is more valuable than gold, oil and money because it is vital to our existence yet taken for granted. With a rapidly increasing world population and a mass exodus of people moving towards large, condensed cities, Kirk’s long term positions on water make tons of sense. I have a feeling that water companies in countries with current severe water problems would fair better than American companies.

2.) Batteries. Battery technology has always lagged behind the technology sector, and everyone is just about fed up. We need some fuel supply for our mega-capable portable devices of today that can last for weeks, months, years at a time without recharge. On some phones the largest component is the battery. On laptops the heaviest component is the battery. As a laptop user I abhor “plugging in”. In a world which is getting increasingly portable, the market for long-lasting, reliable, relatively affordable power supplies is HUGE HUGE HUGE. Any advice on how to catch this wave? I am looking towards some fuel cell technologies and Energizer (ENR). Drop me some sector fund names if you know any that concentrate on portable energy.

3.) Nanotech. That term is so vague and can be applied in so many areas that it’s basically a crap-shoot trying to pick the right stocks without vigorously keeping up with the sector. Since that is not my plan, I will soon invest in a nanotechnology fund. Holding this for a long period of time (10-15 years at least) could prove profitable as new breakthroughs occur and people start pouring more money into the sector. The key here is to get in at a time when nanotech is not in the news for a while. BUT….nanotech has been a buzzword for quite sometime, and lots of people have lost lots of money investing in it so far. Start looking for companies who are turning their research into actual products, because companies that do only research make no money. Look for nanotech to appear in places you would never expect. Here is a Forbes article on best nanotech products.
Right now it seems sports products have caught the nano bug already, I expect to see it in the luxury goods area in a few years. Being creative, I imagine new nanotech fabrics, creams, materials etc. will start to appear in these places:

  • High end, ultra-warm yet THIN winter coats.
  • New, ultra-luxurious interior fabrics for luxury cars
  • All over the exterior of cars in the form of scratch resistant body panels, rain-resistant windsheilds, super-road-hugging tires
  • Some sort of new material to use on paper currency making it much more difficult to counterfeit
  • Ultra-thin yet ultra-effective insulations for pipes, cables etc.

These are the types of things I expect to see in the upcoming years. I can go on forever, but you get the point. Nanotech can be used in countless areas, some areas which most likely no one even knows about yet. Back in 1960, who would have thought silicon would become so widely used?