Five More Unusual Ways To Make
Money |
By Steven Gillman |
|
There are a lot of ways to make money if you have money. You don't
have to turn to complicated businesses or ordinary ways like bank
C.D.'s. And you don't even have to use your money. If you have
credit cards, for example, you can get cash advances, and make money
with the cash. These are ways that aren't quite a business because
you can do them once or only when you feel like it.
Invest
In Other's Expertise
My friend 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. When
he eventually convinced me to put up the money, it needed a new
transmission for $900. Fortunately, 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 used to do this quite a bit
years ago, and only once lost $50 or so on a car. I knew nothing
about cars, so I did it 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?
Buy And Sell Mobile Homes
Pay cash and you get better
prices on almost anything, including mobile homes. Sell with easy
terms, and you get the highest price, because you are making it
possible for someone to buy a home. More than one investor out there
is buying and selling mobile homes.
I read one investors
story about a recent deal he did. He bought a mobile for $4,000. The
seller was asking $6,500, but was tired of waiting and paying the
lot rent. The investor cleaned it up and sold it for $10,000, with
$1000 down, payments of $250, and 10% interest on the balance. Did
the buyer overpay Hard to say, since his alternative may have
been renting and having nothing to show for it in a few years,
instead of having a home with some residual value.
Be A
Loan Shark
People occasionally need money for a short
while. A friend of mine for example, got a good paying construction
job because I loaned him $300 to get drywall stilts. I used to do
this often many years ago, and I never charged less than a $5/week
as a loan fee (don't call it interest). I made one or two thousand
dollars extra some years doing this. If you have any qualms about
it, check the laws in your area and put it all in writing. Also, if
you want total security, take collateral.
Buy And Sell
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 player,
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 There are endless ways to make
money. |
|
|
|
|
|