Thought I'd add a little color...

I’ve been on my computer quite a bit more than usual lately.

No, I haven’t just been surfing the internet. No, I haven’t been playing a lot of video games. No, I haven’t been spending time at morally questionable sites either… I’ve been making money. At least $200 a month guaranteed, with what I consider to be minimal effort.

How, you ask? By using a little technique I like to call…

The CraigBay Technique.  

The CraigBay Technique (my own term…patent pending,) isn’t really anything revolutionary (at least I don’t think so anyway, seems kinda common-sense to me), but it’s not something I’ve seen described on any other blogs, except in a general, abstract way.  

That general, abstract way can be described in four words; buy low, sell high.

More specifically, I buy things off of Craigslist, and I turn around and sell them on Ebay. Now, before I get too detailed, I just want to let everyone know that this will be the topic of an upcoming E-book I’m writing, and this article is really just a teaser.

I estimate that I make this $200 dollars a month putting in about 5 hours of work per month tops, which comes out to $40 an hour, and only 1.25 hours of work per week. If this were put in terms of a regular 40-hour work week, a person using the CraigBay Technique could theoretically make $6400.00 a month.

Ah, but what about that pesky tax stuff, you ask? Even after taking out about 25% for taxes, the grand total at the end of a year would still be about $57,000, which is really pretty good for E-mailing someone about their item, picking it up, driving home, listing it on Ebay, and dropping it off at the local post office, all of which are pretty low-intensity activities.

Granted, there are some pitfalls to this technique, such as an item not selling, and the amount of gas used in picking items up, but I feel that if one’s homework (simple research) is done correctly, then it’s fairly fool-proof. At the very least it can make you a couple hundred a month, and I’ve already written about how just $100 dollars a month can change your life. Imagine what $200 could do?

Keep an eye out for the CraigBay E-book in the next few weeks, full of details, simple strategies, and very specific examples.

The Face of Thomas Jefferson, forever etched in stone at Mt. Rushmore.

On October 3, 2008, Pres. George W. Bush signed into law the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), ostensibly to alleviate the sub-prime mortgage crisis engulfing the nation. It became a $700 billion bail-out for several of the world’s largest financial institutions including Bank of America, CitiGroup, AIG, and General Motors. At the time of its proposal, the US Congress was literally inundated with calls, emails and letters from the citizenry proclaiming…

DO NOT DO THIS! WE DON’T WANT THIS!

Those multitudes of pleas went unheeded and unanswered.

Americans were told in short that the entire world would implode if Congress, the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve did not help, as these companies were deemed “too big to fail”.

Considering that TARP displays a complete lack of Republicanism as defined by the Founding Fathers,  what would Thomas Jefferson have thought about it?

In order to understand how completely disappointed, displeased, and downright disgusted the Third President of the United States of America would be with this nation’s citizens and politicians, a little delving into his philosophical beliefs is required.

Thomas Jefferson, the creator of the Declaration of Independence, was an enlightened individual who strongly believed in the unalienable rights of man. His political philosophy was influenced by John Locke, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. As a politician, Jefferson hated corporations, banks and any entity (including governments) which tried to usurp anything from the citizenry or force its will upon them. In fact, he was often considered a maverick and an idealist seeking an agrarian society which upheld state’s rights over and above a very limited federal government. Jefferson is considered one of, if not the most, influential of all the Founding Fathers.

To say that Thomas Jefferson would be appalled by TARP would be a gross understatement. If it were at all possible, he would have risen from the dead and marched into the Halls of Congress to scare the daylights out of every single member of Congress who voted in favor of the bail-out. The man that was one of the architects of this nation and its Constitutional Republic would never understand how the citizens to the United States would stand by and allow this to happen.

Jefferson did not want a central bank for the United States, in fact he didn’t want corporations at all, and he certainly expected the citizenry to cast out any entity that would casually hand out billions and billions of dollars to prevent those that made bad decisions from suffering their consequences.

Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or in his writings did Thomas Jefferson ever state that corporations or banks were more important than the freedoms and rights of man (make no mistake, the freedom and rights of man were attacked through this stimulus bill, through higher taxes, more obligations, and a less prosperous America for us and our children).

So in summary, no, Thomas Jefferson would not have ever thought of, or even entertained the idea of, saving financial institutions from their own idiocy by using federal monies, which come from only one major source-

The People of the United States of America.

“A choice between what is right, and what is easy…” 

-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

J.K Rowling holding a copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"

With some 800 million copies worldwide, the Harry Potter series has grossed author J.K. Rowling an estimated one billion dollars. 

But her Gringotts’ vault wasn’t always loaded with galleons. In fact, at the time of The Sorcerer’s Stone’s publication, Rowling was just a single mother living on welfare. 

After a sudden divorce in 1993, Rowling left her meager-paying position in Portugal as an English teacher and moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. Strenuously fighting a losing battle against bills and single-parenthood, Rowling managed to scrape out pieces of “book one” in local cafes, where it’s rumored she scribbled notes on spare bits of napkin. 

After years of seemingly fruitless work, Rowling mailed out a few chapters to a series of agents, with mixed results. Undeterred, she contacted twelve different publishing houses with copies of the manuscript, all of whom rejected the project, giving much the same response. A full year of searching later, the rights to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (the title of the English edition), were finally purchased by a small London press with an advance of just 1500 pounds. 

 The editor responsible for the purchase suggested a day job for Rowling, insinuating that her financial prospects from publication were bleak. Good thing she didn’t listen. 

Now, over a decade since children around the world first learned the rules of Quidditch, Rowling is ranked among the 20 wealthiest women in Europe. The brilliance of Rowling’s story is often overshadowed by the financial success she now enjoys; the true miracle is the realization of a dream that—in other hands—would likely have faded in respect to the obstacles Rowling was confronted with on a daily basis. 

There’s an integrity to Rowling’s prose, something that transcends the boundary between the hardships of her main character, Harry, and herself. We’re drawn to Harry for his inability to compromise his morals, for an unwillingness to submit—even against seemingly insurmountable odds. Isn’t there something courageous—something entirely heroic—in the story of Rowling herself? 

Some claim Rowling’s success was the product of “luck,” that she “stumbled upon the perfect idea.” And sure, we’d all write children’s literature if we knew that, in the end, we’d be grossing more per year than most big-name corporations. 

But how many of us have abandoned our dreams for the practical, the responsible, even the “right” choice? 

How many of us could stare down a bundle of bills while bouncing a child on our knee, could watch thousands of hours of our work, our hopes, our tears returned as “inadequate” by those whose opinions matter most, could look poverty in the eye and still stand true to our cause.

 How many of us could keep going? 

Forget the billions of hours of joy Rowling has spread to children around the world, forget the countless donations to literacy her work has inspired. At the end of the day, Rowling stands among the  greats—not for her fortunes—but for her misfortunes.

A unique way to save money...

It’s easy to be committed to saving money when you realize that;

A). You have no money

B). You can’t pay your bills

C). Your spouse will kill you when he/she finds out how much you’ve spent on that new purse/ power tool.

But after these moments come and pass, most of us fall back into our comfortable habits of spending money here and there on things we really don’t need, and after a while we wonder why we don’t have as much in that savings account as we thought we were going to.

What we need is to be reminded, constantly, to save money. The way I’ve found to do this is write two simple words down on many, many pieces of paper. Those words are; Save Money.

Neuro-Repetition

It may sound silly, but in the past I have taken scraps of paper, written those words on them, and taped them everywhere. And I mean everywhere, on the fridge, on my nightstand, in my daily planner, on my desk at work, in my textbooks…even on the steering wheel of my car!

After several days of seeing this phrase everywhere, it was firmly stuck in my head. I found myself saying these words over and over in my head, not even realizing I was doing it (I call it Neuro-Repetition… yeah I know, I just created my own medical term… what a nerd, right?).

And then when it came time to open my wallet and spend money, it was almost impossible. It’s like those two words became a part of my being, and to go against them felt like a crime against nature.

No, I’m Not Entirely Crazy

There is actually some science behind this, based in something called neuroplasticity. Basically that means that scientists now think that the brain is a much more dynamic, flexible organ than was once believed, able to change and adapt based on what information we absorb and what we learn.

By reading those two words over and over, I had in a sense re-wired my brain to, well, save money. It’s the same concept that was used in a Harvard study a few years ago.

In the study, there were two groups of people. One group spent time imagining that they were playing a keyboard while looking at sheet music; the other group actually played the keyboard. The brains of the people in both groups were scanned before and after the experiment.

As the scientists expected, there was obvious growth in the section of the brain that controls the fingers in the group that actually played. What wasn’t expected however was the discovery that in those who only imagined playing, their brains responded in the same exact way, without ever playing a note.

In essence, the second group changed their brain just by thinking it.

So let’s think (no pun intended) about the implications. While not as easy as I may be making it sound, one could conceivably change the way they think and act, as long as they concentrate long and hard on it, practice it, get it in their heads (so to speak), and imagine themselves actually acting and behaving the way they want to, over and over again, repeatedly, until it literately becomes a part of themselves.

If nothing else, this technique will at least get you thinking about saving that money.

When I last wrote about Ally.com, I had decided to open up just one online savings account and name it Car Maintenance. The money transferred into this account on a monthly basis from my regular bank is earmarked for, you guessed it, anything having to do with maintaining my car, including oil changes, new tires, and any other type of unexpected repairs.

Now however, not only do I have that one account, but I’ve added 3 others, titled College Books, Tuition, and Gifts. Basically I estimated how much per year I spent in each of these categories, divided that number by 12, and set up an automated direct deposit that transfers the amounts I decided on once a month.

New Spin on an Existing Concept

This brings me to a new spin on a concept that has been around for a while called the envelope system. This is a system that Dave Ramsey espouses on his radio talk show and in his books. Essentially, one is supposed to have a plain old paper envelope for every type of bill, especially those Discretionary Bills, filled with a certain amount of money. Once that amount of money is gone, then that’s it for the remainder of the month.

I’ve used the envelope system once before, but the problem I kept running into was when one of the envelopes was empty, I developed the bad habit of simply taking money from another envelope, which pretty much defeats the purpose of the system.

With Ally however, one has the ability to create an Electronic Envelope System, which makes it much more difficult to simply grab a $20 from another envelope and use it for something other than it was intended for. Plus it’s nice not to have to keep track of loose change.

Ease of Use

Using the money in these online savings accounts is quite easy as well. In fact, just the other day I had the oil in my car changed. All I did was pay for it using my debit card that was linked to my regular bank account, I kept the receipt, and when I got home I transferred the exact amount from my Car Maintenance fund at ally.com to my bank account. Simple as that.

How successful do you act?

I won’t lie…

When I started this blog I entertained ideas of making some money off of it (I still do in fact). I had dollar signs in my eyes, so to speak. But the more I was reading about making money blogging, the more I realized how unlikely it would be, until I became more and more discouraged, finally putting off the writing of content altogether.

 Then just the other day a thought occurred to me, something rather simple but slightly profound. That thought was this; if I put all of my effort into developing my blog, if I stuck with it with religious fervor, not listening to any nay-sayers and forsaking my daily allotment of television viewing and socializing, then…my blog still might not become a success.

However, if I just quit now, fearing the possibility of not succeeding, then my blog will have become, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a mega, colossal failure.

Sure, success in anything requires more than just persistence; it requires things like hard work, a dose of talent, and even a dash of luck from time to time.

But to quit something just because of the possibility that it might fail seems to me now almost like a form of cowardice.

Ironically…

This strikes me as funny actually, because I consider myself pretty versed in what it takes to be successful. I’ve read the books, listened to the speakers, and downloaded the podcasts. It seems however that there is still a leap to be made from knowing what it takes to be successful, and actually applying that knowledge in your actions.

So my challenge to all of you out there is this; examine what you think you know and believe about success.

Then examine if those beliefs you say you have are readily apparent in your life. If not, then think about what you can do to reconcile the rift between belief and action.     

The New York Times Square branch of Bank of America

Bank of America announced yesterday that they would begin to repay the $45 billion in bailout money they received from the government (which in turn came from us taxpayers), over the course of the next few days.

Bank of America on Bailout

It’s Bank of America’s motives for doing this that was the most uplifting thing about this piece of news for me. See, while they held that government money, Bank of America was subject to many regulations and restrictions, one of which being a cap on the pay of any CEO they may potentially hire.

Current Bank of America CEO, Ken Lewis

The result- they can’t find a CEO. Their current CEO will retire on December 31st, and they don’t have a replacement.

Bank of America believes that by repaying this money, they will be free of the government regulations, and that may help them find a CEO.

And it’s not like Bank of America just has the money lying around to do this either, in fact, they have to raise 18.8 billion dollars to pay off the government money in full.

What I’m Taking Away From This

Companies who have received TARP funds have a certain stigma about them. The American people and other business men and women want nothing to do with a company who in essence allowed the taxpayer to swoop in and save them.

Why else would their stock rise at this news? Because Bank of America is in a better financial situation than they used to be? Yes, they have recovered somewhat, but they’re still raising 18.8 billion to do this, and that’s not exactly a small amount of change.

My Prediction

 Soon after this government money is paid back in full, they will find another quality CEO, and not just because the deadline is looming larger every day.

Of course, I do bathe daily, unlike most nerds. And I exercise nearly every day of the week, which is something hardcore nerds seem to be allergic to.

But when a movie like the new Star Trek directed by J.J. Abrams promotes me to write a post about what Star Trek can teach us about our finances, simply because I want to in some way relate a post to Star Trek…I consider myself a nerd.

All kidding aside, Star Trek is chock-full of worthwhile themes and concepts that translate into beneficial thought concerning what we do with our money.

Considering that the planet Earth of Star Trek times has eliminated war and disease completely, they may be on to something.

Warp Drive is...really fast

Warp Drive…and Debt?

Consider the forms of propulsion throughout history; walking, animals pulling wagons, sails attached to ships moved by wind, the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, the rockets of the space age… all of these seem rather primitive compared to an engine that propels things faster than the speed of light.

Consider the beginning stages of your investments or debt elimination as those early forms of propulsion. They may not seem like much, and none of them will ever get you as far as warp drive could, but all of them have been necessary to obtain warp drive.

Over time those early steps will grow until one day you’ll look back and be amazed at how far you have come.

If we never figured out how to build a simple rocket, how could we possibly travel faster than light?

This was unheard of on television at the time

Everybody’s Welcome! 

In the days of the original Star Trek (1966-1969), one of the unique things about the show was that diversity was encouraged and promoted, evidenced by the fact that the crew of the Enterprise consisted of both men and women, in equal positions of authority, enjoying equal opportunities for advancement and recognition.

Additionally shocking was the fact that one of those females was black.

Oh, and did I mention that whole species that haven’t even had a chance to be discriminated against yet, namely aliens from other planets, were treated just as fairly?

The point here is that in order to get rid of debt, build wealth, and achieve financial independence, all of your old ways of thinking need to be at least examined, if not completely reworked. You’ll have to let go of old discriminations and assumptions that have kept you from achieving your financial goals and instead develop and cultivate new behavior that is more conducive to your aspirations.

Seems pretty comfortable in that chair, doesn't he?

“I don’t believe in the no-win scenario”

 In the new Star Trek film, an argument between Spock and Kirk occurs, concerning a test designed to determine how cadets respond to a situation in which there is no way to win. James Kirk responds with the dramatic and defiant line, “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario”.

Sometimes when it comes to our finances, we must also have this stubborn perspective. We must be able to blindly, on nothing more than faith, believe that we will be able to climb out of the deep, dark hole of debt, and one day rise to the point where we can be financially independent.

This will probably be one of the harder things to do; after all, we’ve lived our entire lives believing that those rare, uber-rich individuals are almost freaks of nature, that no common hard-working person could ever come close to that sort of success. Society itself tells us this often enough.

Just by believing 100% that it’s possible is at least half the battle. All that’s left at that point is to just take the steps to get there.