Forbes: Take a few micro jobs. With the economic downturn and the technology/social media upturn, a new industry has emerged that helps people with small jobs or tasks such as running errands or something more interesting such hiring a micro jobber to “ask someone for forgiveness” for you (that would certainly get their attention.) On the other hand, some jobs could actually lead into something else such as reviewing resumes for job seekers, or recording video testimonials for websites. The micro job site takes a cut of course, but you net out a profit for a few minutes of your time. When you take the micro jobs, invest the funds to build wealth. You’d also have some great stories to tell.
Invent something and sell the concept. One of my favorite inventions is the pool sweep, not that I have a pool but I just think it is an amazing invention. Millions of pool owners agree since every swimming pool owner I have ever met has one of these devices that crawls along the bottom of the pool vacuuming up leaves and debis for them. A penniless engineer named Ferdinand Chauvier brought his family from the Belgian Congo to South Africa and eventually invented the first automatic pool vacuum in 1974 when he came up with the prototype for the “Kreepy Krauly” as he called it. Pool owners everywhere gladly pay for this amazing device. If you are constantly coming up with new ideas or ways to dramatically improve things, in your spare time, make a prototype or sell the concept to a company who buys ideas.
Negotiate. Negotiations are a key determinant on the direction your journey to wealth takes. When you make negotiating a game to pay less for everything you purchase, you can not only save thousands of dollars on things you are purchasing anyways but you can make money by reselling. A friend of mine loves a deal and his idea of fun is calling his cable TV company to let them know he received an offer from a competitor to see what they will offer him to stay. I observed him getting a free month and a three month premium package for his phone call. The key for him is making it a game which he uses for every single purchase he makes and he saves thousands of dollars as well as getting free services along the way. He took it to a new level with his baseball card collection and resells cards he got amazing deals on and now makes enough to make his house payment every month. You can do the same.
Turn your hobby into a business. You have a special interest or talent, why not use it to build wealth? I already mentioned my friend who turned his baseball card collection into a major wealth builder and there are tons of other examples we hear about every day for someone who takes some initiative. An employee one of our financial planners recently met with at a worksite financial planning session mentioned that he recently started an online book selling business. He loves to read and is adept at IT so he combined his interest with his talent and started selling used books on Amazon.
Reduce your tax bill and invest the difference. Taxes are one way of depreciating or appreciating your current wealth. Educate yourself on smart tax reduction strategies such as what I just mentioned in turning your hobby into a wealth-building business. Some tax strategies include harvesting losses against your gains or “bunching” your expenses or even your year-end bonuses into the following year so you don’ t phase out of student loan interest deductions or taking losses on rental property.
Solve a problem. You can create more wealth per problem solved. For example, some students at Chicago University came up with an idea to install a “round up” button on cash registers so customers can automatically donate to charity by rounding up their transactions. These students won $10,000 to give to their favorite charity!
