Chapter 4: Easy Ways To Make Money
There are easy ways to make money in my opinion, but of course this means different things to different people.
For example, do you want easy ways to make money right now, or ways to make the most over time with the least effort? These really are two very different things.
Easy Ways To Make Money Right Now
Go get a job. Or just work more hours at your present job. Starting a business or learning to invest successfully isn't easy. A job is easier. To be able to go to work and get a paycheck every week or two guaranteed - that's easy!
Sell things. An easy way to make money quickly is to sell whatever you don't need. Get rid of the second car, the boat you never use, etc.
Reduce expenses. Stop smoking, and learn how to spend less for all the things you buy. If you can spend $14 less each day on unimportant things, you save over $5,000 per year. That's like making $7,000 more (you have to earn that much to have $5,000 after taxes).
Easy Ways To Make Money - Eventually
The job is easier than a business, but really only in the near-term. If you define easy as "the most money over time for the least effort," you need to invest or start a business, or both. I've got two stories to demonstrate that idea.
I bought my first home in my twenties, and it was just a mobile home on real estate, but I discovered that I could easily rent rooms. I was soon living for free as well as banking some of the money. This wasn't a "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.
My second story has to do with this internet business. I spend a lot of time writing these articles now, and distributing them. People read them, click through to my web sites from the link at the bottom, and maybe buy a product that I get a commission on, or I get paid for the advertising clicks. Really, it is pretty easy now, but that's not how it started.
I worked full time from the start. Six months into it, I was making a net profit of about $2 per day. It was a bit discouraging. I had a lot to learn.
Fortunately, I learned my lessons, and as it turns out, I was making something closer to $30 per hour for my time. I just wouldn't be paid for the first year. Now the business pumps out the money I made from those earlier efforts, and keeps doing so even when I am on vacation.
That's the way it is with money. If you want more money than a job will provide, you have to invest or start a business. That may mean you work for a dollar per hour to start, so that you can easily collect $100 per hour, years down the road. If that sounds too discouraging, then maybe there are no easy ways to make money.