Making Money Archives | Elite Edge Money

Did I Just Get Myself a New Job?

J. Money — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 10:06:21 +0000

I read somewhere recently that no matter what stage of life you’re in, making a little money helps fulfill you even if you’re retired or don’t even need the money.

And as we settle better into WifeFI here I’m realizing just how true this may be!

Earlier last month a good friend reached out and asked if I wanted to help him with some projects over at a new board game publishing company he just signed onto. He recently came on board as their Director of Marketing, and as usual we try to rope each other into our new endeavors to continue the fun ;) Even if we have no experience in the fields we get ourselves into! I couldn’t tell you jack about the gaming world except that of course Monopoly is the undisputed G.O.A.T of all time (don’t @ me!).

But it’s been a blast so far, and true to that tidbit above, I’ve been very much enjoying the extra income as well. It’s hard to explain it exactly, but it’s a different kind of productiveness. One that feels distinct from a 9-5 or even a part-time job, but not nearly as rewarding as volunteering or being a Stay-At-Home Daddy (which ironically neither pays and one actually COSTS money, lol). But it does add a nice varied strand of productiveness that I didn’t notice was missing and will now have to incorporate it into my “ideal lifestyle.”

In fact, this new gig is a unicorn too and hits 3 out of 3 from the Triad of Hustling! My formula for knowing whether a project is worth taking on or not, or vice versa: deciding whether to KILL one or not.

The three variables of this triad are:

The amount of TIME the project requires
The amount of MONEY the project pays
And then, sometimes most importantly, the amount of FUN the project is

Hit just 1 of the 3 favorably and it’s not worth pursuing at all. Hit 2 of the 3 and it’s a good possibility it’s worth it! But hit 3 of the 3 and it’s a guaranteed home run :) And, so far, this new board game gig has felt like an absolute home run. I get to work with my good friend and on *my own time*. It only requires about 5-10 hours/week. And, as we get farther and farther away from working full-time, it’s been nice dusting off my skills again and putting them back to use (I was brought on to help them build a community).

I’ll also admit I’m having a fantastic time learning about a whole other space out there that I didn’t even know existed! There’s soooooo many influencers in the gaming world just as there are in the PF space (maybe even more?), and again like the PF world they’re super inclusive and just trying to get people excited and learning *in real life*. From YouTubers to podcasters to TikTok’ers to bloggers it’s a pretty thriving community!

And then of course it’s always nice to get paid fairly for helping out. Making me feel even more secure in my decision to kinda-sorta-but-not-all-the-way retire, lol…

I plan on using this money to cover all the unexpected parts of life, like flat tires and medical bills (I just had to get another round of infusions* for my disease – ugh!) as well as the GOOD unexpected parts like shiny new “wants” or books or new places to donate to. We haven’t tapped any of our investments during this semi-retirement (my wife’s income pays the bills, thus Wife-FI!) but some months we do drain a little from our savings so this will be a nice way to stay topped off there too.

So yeah, I’m a game board nerd now – watch out! Anyone else immersed in this booming community?? Or attend any of the millions of conferences all around the world??! (That’s right – there’s even BOARD GAME CONFERENCES!)

Couldn’t have ever forecasted this one, but you never know what’ll come out of the Year of The Flow… Clear eyes, full hearts, baby! Anything can happen! :)

XOXO,

UPDATE: And now I’ve been laid off from said new board game gig!!! Lolol…. 53 days into it and the universe taketh away almost as fast as it giveth Was fun while it lasted at least!

*Did I already tell you how much these infusions cost for my Pemphigus? $20,000 a piece! And I always have to do a round of TWO! Thankfully insurance pays a bulk of it (my total comes down to $1,600 out of pocket from the $40k+) but man, medications these days are no joke… Don’t ever get sick, OK? ;)

[This post, Did I Just Get Myself a New Job?, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

Going After Uncollected Judgment Money! (Side Hustle Idea #85)

J. Money — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 09:10:03 +0000

Good morning!

Found an intriguing note in my inbox this week and thought you’d enjoy it ;)

People are getting more and more creative with how they earn $$$ on the side!! File this one next to suing robocallers for cash and uncovering hidden money as a forensic accountant…

******

Hi J Money,

I came across your blog post recently, and saw you describing how you won a lawsuit against your former employer, only to have them conveniently disappear. (Readers from 2011 will remember this! Where I got laid off but never received my last paycheck!)

Sadly this is all too common – in fact, only about 20% of money judgments in the US ever get even partially collected on. Talk about ridiculous! I’m wondering if you might like to explore the possibility of actually collecting on that judgment?

Depending on your jurisdiction, it may be that the judgment is still enforceable. Many states stipulate that judgments expire after 10 years, but that’s not always true. If your judgment is still active (or even if you think it might be) I’d love to arrange a time for us to connect if you’re open to it.

As far as who I am/why I’m interested – I am a private investor looking to add several uncollected judgments such as yours to my portfolio.

To be clear, I am NOT an attorney, but I do have quite a bit of knowledge in this area. While I cannot provide legal counsel, what I can do is purchase and take assignment of judgments from those who have won them, and then proceed to pursue the debtor myself. So please let me know if you’d like to discuss this further, and I’ll be glad to give you more details at that point.

Kind Regards,

Mr. Investor

******

Fascinating right?! This guy is willing to do the dirty work for you so you can recover your long lost money!! Which is incredibly helpful as most people (like me) don’t know jack on how you’d go about chasing it down, or whether it’s even worth the time spent to spend on it or not…

Of course, you’d have to trust a guy enough to let him assume “ownership” of your judgment and act on your behalf, but if you can get past that it sounds like a helluva deal. Especially if you’re currently getting $0.00 of what you’re owed!

I told him thanks but no thanks in my particular case since I really don’t feel like opening up that can of worms again and plus the company has long been dissolved by now, but it did hit my curious spot so I wrote back:

******

Hey dude! Bringing me back a few years here! Haha…

It’s probably not worth it to be honest as if I recall it was only a few thousand dollars which is less important to me today than it was back then, and unfortunately I don’t really keep in touch w/ the rest of the gang where we could all do a group thing or something to make it more worthwhile…

But I do appreciate the reach out and love the hustle! Do you do this stuff on the side or is it your main gig?

Reminds me of the latest installment of our Side Hustle Series: “I’ve Made $40,000 going after illegal robocallers.” (Side Hustle #84)

******

His response:

Totally understand, and thanks for getting back to me!

Just so you know, there’d be no out-of-pocket cost to you and very little effort required on your part if you wanted to pursue this further – basically what I’d do is take ownership* (officially called an “assignment”) of the judgment from the original creditor (you), which then enables me to pursue the debtor myself (I can’t represent you since I’m not a debt collector or attorney, so I have to essentially step into your place in order to do what I do).

Then, I would split whatever I’m able to collect with you after accounting for any expenses I incur in the process.

All I would ask is that you’re able to answer occasional questions to fill in any informational gaps I encounter. I would do all the legwork of enforcement such as post-judgment discovery subpoenas, levying bank accounts, asset seizure, placing of real estate liens, and so forth. There are even methods of pursuing debtors who have offshored their assets, though that likely wouldn’t apply in your case.

This is just a side gig for me at the moment, my primary expertise is in IT. I sort of fell into learning about judgment enforcement after suing a gym I used to belong to as a self-represented litigant after they refused to cancel my membership and stop billing me when they shut down for Covid. I had followed their instructions exactly, and they still refused to stop harassing me, even going as far as sending me to collections.

As a matter of fact, it’s funny you mentioned robocall lawsuits, because the TCPA was actually one of the statutes I used to go after them since they were using an auto dialer to pester me about paying for the membership I had canceled months previously.

In the end, I wound up withdrawing the lawsuit after they agreed to stop pursuing me and not muck up my credit score which was all I really wanted to begin with. So even though I didn’t end up winning a final judgment, I did a LOT of research and learning as the case progressed, which, among other things, led me to become pretty darn knowledgeable about how to enforce judgments.

As you and so many others have found out, it’s super common to have a debtor refuse to pay even after the judge bangs the gavel so to speak. I hadn’t done much with the knowledge I gained for a year and a half or so, but earlier this year shortly before my son was born, I decided to see if I could put my knowledge to use helping people like you who went through all the trouble of seeing their cases through to the end, only to be denied being paid a single cent of what they’re rightfully owed.

I do try to be somewhat targeted with the judgments I purchase though – usually I’m looking for debtors that are businesses, and there are some states with stricter regulations that I steer clear of as well.

Mr Investor

*The assignment of judgment to the enforcer is standard practice in most cases. If nothing else, just remember that I as the enforcer have every incentive to collect as much as they can from the debtor – if you don’t get paid, I don’t get paid! The only ways to have someone else collect on your judgment and avoid assignment are to either hire an attorney or work with a collections agency, and it’s rare that either of these options work in the creditor’s favor – attorneys of course will require substantial upfront and ongoing fees, and collections agencies will almost always just call people incessantly. Most attorneys receive almost no training in law school surrounding the enforcement of judgments, they are trained to litigate and bring a favorable resolution for their client but anything after that point is almost always up to the client to figure out for themselves.

******

Gotta love the hustle!

Sucks he had to go through all that nonsense, but now he’s armed and dangerous with all that knowledge – watch out future debtors!! Lol…

Or maybe even watch out past debtors of yours?? I asked him if it was cool to share our communication here and if he was open to hearing other cases that readers may be involved with, and he wrote back saying, “HELL NO – Are you an idiot! Don’t ever share this publicly, you turd!!!” J/K, haha…

He said sure – he’d be happy to help ;)

He has to be picky on which cases he takes on as he alluded to, but if you’ve got one you think could use some power behind to recover money legally owed to you, drop me a note and I’ll forward it along to him.

He also passed me this if you’re interested in digging deeper yourself:

“If anyone is considering going after a debtor on their own, or just wants to go a bit further down the rabbit hole and learn a bit more about some of the specifics involved in doing this, I highly recommend any content by Joe Dickerson of Financial Forensics LLC.

Here is one of my favorite videos featuring him: Debt Collection: How To Locate Bank Accounts & Other Assets To Enforce Judgments. There are a few other videos of him I’ve found on YouTube, and he also did a limited podcast series a while back called “The Judgment Enforcement Hour” which was fantastic. I found it on Apple Podcasts but I’m sure it’s available on other platforms too.”

******

Hope this helps!!

In getting back some of your own money, or going down a new side gig path… It’s clearly not for everyone, but sounds pretty lucrative for all those bulldogs out there!

Any questions at all, just leave them in the comments and our Investor Friend here will be happy to answer them…

To check out our list of 80+ other ways to make money on the side, check out our Side Hustle Series. Always some way to earn more depending on your time, skills, personality! You can even make stuff up out of thin air like this guy! :)

Yours in The Hustle,

[This post, Going After Uncollected Judgment Money! (Side Hustle Idea #85), was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

I did surveys for money (and I liked it!)

J. Money — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 09:06:55 +0000

So this is cool –> I’ve earned $80.00 worth of Amazon credit! Woo!

I started doing surveys for rewards last year when I was bored and trying to be more productive, haha, and then right before I was gonna quit ‘cuz I started getting busy again I decided to check and see what my points were worth…

And turns out, a lot more than nothing!

So I quickly cashed them in and released my finger from the “delete my account” button, and then my kids blew through the $$$ in about 15 minutes

Still, worth the 5 hours total I probably spent on it over the months? And have actually come to enjoy giving my opinion over the money itself! The surveys are always so diverse and gets me to stop and *think* for a hot second which is great – at least after convincing my A.D.H.D. to pipe down, lol… (that’s probably the hardest part of all – sitting still for 15 mins straight and focusing!)

Here’s a snapshot of my history so far from the year:

You can see how diverse the surveys are in that right-hand column…

So far we’ve covered gaming, Covid, healthcare, climate issues, public affairs, financial items, and legal services. Pretty serious stuff, and all things most of us have opinions on! Or at least will LEARN you have opinions on after seeing the questions, lol…

I’ve actually been *learning* a ton of stuff along the way too – namely that a lot of people have it much worse out there than I realized :( I like to think I have a good grasp on how “the other world” lives, but seeing some of the pointed questions asked throughout the surveys has def. helped put things in better perspective.

Here were some of the ones I copied down from the healthcare affordability survey, ugh…

Ever not seek treatment due to cost?
Ever not get medication because of cost?
Ever file bankruptcy or drop insurance or other equally as scary things because of not having money??
How confident are you that you could afford the health care you need if you, or a family member who is financially dependent on you, were to become seriously ill?
If you were to experience an unexpected medical event this year that left you with a bill for $1,000, how confident are you that you would have the money to pay the bill within 30 days?

Can you imagine answering “yes” to those top ones? Or not being able to cover $1,000 just in general??!

So heart wrenching, gosh… And perhaps there was a time I wouldn’t have been able to afford any of it myself, but no way I would have been left stranded with the family and support system I’ve been blessed with since birth. The biggest problem I had growing up was not being able to rock Nikes like all my friends

But I digress…

I’m now a survey monkey – did not see that coming! Haha…. especially since I’ve lasted over 14 years in this space without having been tempted! Just never assumed it was worth the trade off for time (and maybe it isn’t with other survey sites?!), but after being contacted by these guys and liking what they were about (seemed more serious and helpful than other silly surveys), I figured I’d give it a shot and see where I end up…

They are called AmeriSpeak, and even have a Wikipedia page so you know they’re legit Now unfortunately it looks like you have to be *invited* to participate in their surveys (“to ensure that it represents a cross-section of U.S. households”), but if you wanna check them out in case one day you are, you can learn more here: AmeriSpeak.org

They were created in 2014 by NORC at the University of Chicago, “whose studies inform government, business, and nonprofits to help them understand important topics related to society, education, employment, human development, and finance. Organizations such as Consumer Reports, the American Cancer Society, American Red Cross, Associated Press, Harvard University, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and many more, have asked NORC to conduct research for them.”

(And btw, I’m not getting compensated in the least to write about them… Though if I recall correctly, they did mail me a $5.00 bill to get my attention in hopes I signed up, and it worked! Haha… Good job, marketing team )

While you can’t sign up to them though yet (maybe they’ll see this and let me invite some of you?!), here are other popular survey sites in the space in case you’re convinced to jump in and give it a shot too.

I haven’t tested any of them yet, but if this itch continues I just may have to cheat on AmeriSpeak and hook up with others, haha… Would love to know which of these are worth it and which aren’t if you’ve tried any??!

A Diamond Doesn’t Shine at The Bottom of a Cave 💎

J. Money — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 09:06:38 +0000

Good morning!

I have a story to share with you today that I stole from our good friend Joel :)

See if you can catch the lesson(s)!

*******

A father told his daughter, “Congrats on your graduation. I bought you a car a while ago. I want you to have it now. But before I give it to you, take it to a car dealer in the city. See how much they offer if you sell it.”

The girl came back to her father and said: “They offered me $10,000 dollars because it looks very old.”

Father said: “Ok, now take it to the pawn shop.”

The girl returns to her father and said: “The pawn shop offered $1,000 dollars because it’s a very old car and needs a lot of work done.”

Next the father told her to join a passionate car club with experts and show them the car.

So the girl drove to the passionate car club. She returned to her father a few hours later and told him, “Some people in the club offered me $100,000 dollars because it’s a rare car in original condition!”

Then the father said, “I wanted to let you know that you are not worth anything if you are not in the right place. If you are not appreciated, do not be angry, that just means you are in the wrong place. Don’t stay in a place where no one sees your value.”

Know your worth and know where you are valued. A diamond doesn’t shine at the bottom of a cave.

*******

Boom!

Though I have to admit I was hoping for an even better lesson at the end, lol… Something along the lines of:

“You’re always worth a lot no matter where you are! Your worth is inside YOU –
not what anyone says!”

Or where I *actually* thought this was going because I’m a hustler:

“Always take the time to figure out the best place to maximize your profits!”

Which I’ll admit isn’t as beautiful as the inner worth analogy, but still – just as true ;)

And I have the perfect example to show for it this week!

As I was heading out of an antiques store searching for more vintage rings, I overheard a dealer offering a customer a price for his entire coin collection, to which the customer politely said thanks-but-no-thanks and went on his merry way.

As we crossed paths outside I asked him what he was trying to sell as I’m a curious little lad like that (and also smelled an opportunity!), and he then did what all collectors love to see… He opened up a binder full of 100 year old coins!! Which were obviously all for sale! *Drool…*

He had recently inherited them from his grandfather, and not wanting to continue the family hobby at 20-something years old (weird?), he was looking to trade them for some cash money.

We talked for a bit and I gave him my best advice on how to sell them for the most profit, and in return he gave me a great price on one of them that I needed for my collection. (My ultimate goal is to get *one* of each major type of coin from the United States dating all the way back to the 1700s, and then display them at a local museum!)

Here she is in all her beauty:

[1914 “Barber” U.S. Quarter – the first coin I ever bought “on the streets!” Lol…]

Now similar to the story above, this one also greatly hinges on *who* and *where* you’re trying to hawk your valuables to get the most value!

Taking them to a dealer will differ greatly than taking them to a pawn shop vs taking them to a collector friend you might know. Not only that, the value that’s assigned to them will vary wildly as well – even though it’s always exactly the SAME COIN!

For example, this quarter here can be valued in three unique ways:

Face value — When the U.S. minted these from 1892-1916, they were assigned a face value of 25¢. And if you didn’t know anything about coins or collecting or anything, you’d at least be able to tell that since it literally states “quarter dollar” on the reverse of the coin :) So to all “normal” people, this coin is worth $0.25 and you can actually still spend it as it’s still considered legal tender!

Silver value — Many don’t know this, but all U.S. dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollars (coins) minted in 1964 and earlier contain 90% silver. And at a current rate of about $19.32/oz, that means each of these coins contain at least a few dollars worth of silver in them! This is why so many of us tell people to always check their change to see if they have anything good in there!

Now this Barber Quarter specifically (named so after the engraver, btw) contains approximately 0.18 oz of silver which equates to almost $3.50 (.18 x $19.32). So the “melt value” here is already 14x its face value!

And btw, this is the value that most pawn shops or jewelry stores give you where you see those “we pay cash for silver and gold” type signs posted. They don’t care about the type of coin or jewelry or silverware you bring in and will just weigh it, figure out the % of bullion each contains, and then spit you out a % of the total as your final “offer”. Which is usually 80-90% of the silver or gold value. From there they will bulk it all together with others they bought and cash it in for the full 100% value of the silver and gold – OR (if they’re smart and know what they’re doing) – they will sort through it all first and see if there’s anything valuable and rare and *then* ship it all off to be melted.

This was the case for my new friend here, who was offered probably around $3.00 per quarter which he (rightfully) turned down because each one was worth multitudes more than that, and some even in the hundreds of dollars due to collector value! But if you didn’t know about that third valuation, which we’re slowly getting to next, haha, you’d probably think this is a good deal and take it. So again the *place* matters where you go to sell this stuff!

Collector value — Lastly, coins or other items that are collected are assigned a whole other set of values depending on its rarity and popularity and condition. Some cool old things aren’t worth jack, and some boring new things can be worth a killing – all depending on the hobby and trends and a number of other variables that come into play.

With this quarter in particular, it’s not very rare (over 6 million were produced!), but it is collected and in decent condition (grades conservatively as “Fine” and generously as “Very Fine”) and is worth around $35.00 according to our hobby’s price guide. Which now puts its value as 140x face value – a huge difference from $0.25! But again only matters if you’re talking to a *collector* as no normal person would ever pay such a premium ;)

So TL;DR the 3 values that can be assigned to this coin are:

Face value: $0.25
Silver value: $3.50
“Collector” value: $35.00

All drastically different values, and all for the exact same coin!

So again, *where* you take stuff to sell can matter greatly. If you have the time and energy to explore all the avenues, it’ll almost always net you more profit in the end. But if you’d rather unload them quickly for some fast cash, well, there are plenty of ways you can do that too, and which is why pawn shops are still all over the place! You’ll just have to be okay with getting substantially less in return going that route and more than likely getting ripped off.

We’ll see how our friend here makes out in the long run, but it was a fun random bump in and love that it was a real life example of the cave story up there :)

You may be worth a million bucks, but if you don’t know where to go you might end up selling yourself short! And you’re worth every penny of your sexy smart self, so be sure to max yourself out!!

PS: You can see my full guide on how to liquidate a coin collection here if you ever need it: How to Sell Your Inherited Coin Collection. The general applications can also be applied to baseball cards or marbles or anything else that’s collectible for that matter!

[This post, A Diamond Doesn’t Shine at The Bottom of a Cave 💎, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

“I’ve Made $40,000 going after illegal robocallers.” (Side Hustle #84)

Guest Author — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 09:02:12 +0000

Welcome to another installment of our Side Hustle Series!

And this one is a WHOPPER… Gratifying on so many fronts depending on your level of hatred of robocalls, haha… Requires a bit more legwork and patience, similar to our past hustles on being a Forensic Accountant or Patent Researcher, but all very doable and lucrative for the right type of personality.

Huge thanks for taking the time to share your story with us, Steve! And FYI – Steve is not a lawyer or giving out any legal advice here or anything. He’s just outlining his story for us after I begged him to do it on Twitter because it was so fascinating ;) He’s made over $40,000 so far doing this – all in his spare time!!

Take it away, Steve!

********

How I Got Started

More than 15 years ago a relative of mine was having an ongoing medical issue. I would get calls to my cell phone while at work, sometimes multiple a day, and they were never good news. Each time I heard my cell phone ring, it was like a mini heart attack.

About this same time frame I started getting robocalls, multiple times a day. When I would hear the robocall center start talking and realized the brief moment of panic I had just experienced was from someone I knew was breaking the law, the anger boiled over.

Fast forward to December 2020. At this point the relatives’ medical issues had been long resolved but I was still getting the robocalls, often times 10 – 20 a day, every day. I would waste as much of the robocallers time as possible hoping at some point they would realize calling me was a waste of their time and would reduce the number of calls. The other hope was that if I was wasting their time, they would not be talking to a vulnerable senior citizen since they were talking to me instead.

Long story short, they did not stop calling and I have not stopped wasting their time.

One day, right around December 1st 2020, I get a call from an overseas call center and I play along as if I am interested and get to a US based insurance agent and I read him the riot act over the illegal robo call. He tells me to call their customer support which I did and I continued to read them the riot act.

About an hour later I get a call from the Philippines and the overseas caller says he is the one who called and asked if he could pay me instead of me suing his client and him losing the contract he has with them. I am thinking he is offering $20 or maybe $50.

He says, is $1,000 enough?

At this point I am thinking, this is not the first time this guy has paid for a violation. I do a little research and that is where I stumble upon the name Doc Compton and his Turning Robocalls into Cash Kit. (Not an affiliate link – just a super helpful resource)

Doc’s background is in consumer credit repair, and his kit sells for $47 which is packed full of valuable information and tells you how to go after these robo callers. He used to run a private Facebook group too where we would discuss tactics and exchange information on how best to get these guys which I received a lot of value from, but unfortunately it closed down due to FB group issues and the inability to keep things private (it turned out multiple people in the group were leaking information to call center / lead generators).

Doc now runs a private forum which costs about $200/year to be a member, but return on investment wise, both $ and time, it might be the best money I have ever spent.

The Process of Catching Robocallers

Once I had more information, I started going through the process of figuring it all out… and it is a process.

You have to document calls, figure out the best tools to use to organize what you find, locate who is behind all the calls, find emails addresses, etc. There were multiple times where I thought this is just not going to happen. It’s like anything, starting a blog, a YouTube channel – you need to put in the effort, push past the frustration, and keep at it before it will pay off. Most people are not willing to put in the effort required to get to the pay off.

I keep at it and I get my first two checks within an hour of each other, one through Paypal from a call center in Pakistan and another from a local security system company delivered by UPS an hour later. Shortly after that I am on Twitter and a local reporter posts something about robocalls which leads to me becoming their featured story and news segment seen below:

[King 5 News: ‘It felt like a victory’: Woodinville man gets $3,100 in robocall revenge]

Fast forward to today…

With the settlements I should be receiving in the next couple of weeks, I will have put in my pocket, net of costs, about $40,000 chasing these callers down.

I have settled about 15 total cases, only 1 of which I used an attorney which was settled before trial. One other case I filed a lawsuit on my own, which just settled this week before it went to trial.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg… I know many people who have made way more money than I have in a much shorter time frame. I only go after a small fraction of what I could, and if I were more organized the net profits in my pocket could easily be well over $100K.

However the money is not the motivation for me. It’s about payback. It’s about getting these calls to stop.

If you talk to the people in the Doc Compton group, the overwhelming majority are also more about getting these calls to stop than the money. Having a settlement agreement where it’s laid out how much more a call center / lead generator will pay you if they make the mistake of calling again is a real motivator for them to stop calling. That being said, I still get a similar number of calls each day, only with $40K more in my bank account now.

So here is a very high level overview of the process…

How to Get Paid by a Robocaller 101

First: put your phone on the national do not call list – the “DNC“. Your phone must be listed for at least 30 days on the DNC before a call can potentially be a violation for it being on the DNC. Just do not think putting your phone on the list is going to in anyway reduce the number of calls you get because it won’t.

Some people get paid through state laws. Those like me, whose state laws are weak or non existent, use the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, TCPA, which covers commercial telephone solicitations. Specifically sections 227b and 227c of TCPA which contain a private right of action. A private right of action simply means you can sue someone for money when they violate the law.

Section 227b says a call can not be automated. For example, a call that is a recording that asks you to press 1 to speak to someone is in violation of 227b.
Section 227c covers calls made to phones on the DNC. 227c specifically states you can not make more than 1 call to a DNC registered phone within a 12 month period. So a company can commercially solicit your DNC registered phone 1 time every 12 months if it is not using an automated telephone dialing system, ATDS. There is a lot of nuance in what is and is not an ATDS, however. The TCPA law dates back to the early 90s and could use some 30 year later updating.

Here is another important point to know: scam calls, those calls claiming to be Amazon support or the IRS or whatever is the latest scam, you will never get paid from. They are just criminals out to steal your money and are overseas outside of the reach of US law.

Anyone who calls you saying they are from the government, asking for your social security number, saying they are from Amazon or Apple, or Microsoft needing to access your computer, claiming to be from the cable company offering a deal to lower your bill, those are scams. Have some fun with them, waste as much of their time as possible so they are not stealing from Grandma, but don’t try to make money off them as you will fail.

Focus on US based companies attempting to solicit you

To get paid, you need to get a call that is a violation of your state laws or either 227b and or 227c that ends in a US based company attempting to solicit you.

This could be for health insurance, a security system, car warranty, internet services, or it could be a political action committee depending on their tax status, to give just a few examples. The key is to get past the call center who is almost certainly overseas, and who is almost certainly giving you a fake company name and spoofing the caller id – both violations of laws that do not have a private right of action.

Once you get past the call center to the US based company, you need proof of who they are. Get an address, an email, a valid call back number. That is the hard part and can take some time to learn the skills to do it. This almost always means you play along with the call until you have identified the US based company.

At times you may even need to purchase their product, as crazy as that sounds. My state has very specific laws regarding getting refunds from telephone solicitations. Buying the product is one way to 100% find out who was behind the call, then you simply cancel the purchase according to your state’s laws.

The Demand Letter

Once you have a case built up – you have 1 or more violations, you have proper identification – you send the US based company, who is equally liable for the TCPA violations as the call center they hired, what is called a demand letter. I like to email mine but some send the letter certified mail.

This letter outlines what happened, it explains the violation, the penalties they could face if you file a suit and they lose in court, and then you make an offer to settle.

TCPA specifies that each violation is $500 but also states that if the violation is “willful”, that amount can triple. So the penalty for 2 violations is $1,000 but would increase to $3,000 if those violations are willful, that they knew they were violating the law and that they made no effort to avoid the violations.

When the company gets your letter, they either respond or ignore. For me it’s about 50-50 if I get a response. Sometimes a response will say we disagree and then there is some back and forth communication. But it almost always ends in the company offering some sort of settlement which will almost always include a multiple page settlement agreement and will usually include a non disclosure section.

If the violator wants to include a non disclosure in the settlement, they need to pay extra, that is not part of the payment I am entitled for their violations. It is fairly standard for an NDA to increase the settlement amount by $500 or more. I know some who will not include an NDA unless they get a lot more than $500.

If you do not get a response, it’s common to send what is called a final notice that states they ignored the first letter and the offer to settle so you will be filing a lawsuit as a result.

Once again they may respond or they may ignore. If they ignore it, it’s now up to you if you file a lawsuit or not. If you are getting ignored and are not filing, the reason you are getting ignored might be the violator checked your local court system and found that you are not filing any suits.

In Closing…

I need to be very clear on something…

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Laws also vary from state to state. I am just outlining what I do. What you can or should do might be completely different based on your location. The information I have provided here is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not for everyone. In fact, most people probably should not do this, going after robo callers for violating the law.

I would, however, encourage each and every person to waste as much of the robocallers’ and scammers’ time as possible. I would say if your motivation is making money and you do not get any satisfaction in any of the process, it’s probably not for you.

I get extreme satisfaction knowing I am fighting back, that I am being a pain to those who caused me so much pain, and that by spending time with me means they are not trying to sell my elderly mom an incredibly poor product at an inflated price because that is why they are violating the law in making these calls – they are not able to legitimately sell their products using legal marketing.

I would close by saying this is not free money, and is not for everyone. I just happen to have some of the skills that help me, and more importantly I have the motivation that they provided 15 years ago with my sick relative.

If this is something you are interested in pursuing though, check out Doc Compton’s tips which will help you as much as it helped me: Turning Robocalls into Cash Kit

(I am in no way getting paid to share this link or from sharing my story here. J. asked me to write something up after hearing about my success so I politely obliged. I do hope this gives you a good glimpse into the illegal world of robocalling, though)

– Steve

********

Like this?

Here are other gigs that require similar skill sets:

Side Hustle #72: Finding Hidden Money as a Forensic Accountant ($300/hr)
Side Hustle #61: Patent Researcher ($100-$1,000+ each)

For our full list of hustles, click here: 80+ Ways to Make Extra Money

Thanks again for this, Steve! And congrats on all your success!!

[This post, “I’ve Made $40,000 going after illegal robocallers.” (Side Hustle #84), was first published by Guest Author on Elite Edge Money]

Side hustles and second jobs – are they even worth it?

5am Joel — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 05:30:00 +0000

I was recently discussing side hustles with a friend, who was considering starting a small business alongside her day job. This topic has been discussed over and over within the FI world, and with good reason: side hustles are both interesting and a chance to make some extra moolah!

But I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the idea of side hustles. Often I hear about someone’s side hustle and I think, “dude, that’s just a boring second job – who wants that!?” Other times I’m like “yee-ha, that sounds cool! Even if it pays crap, I want to try it”.

So why my hesitation? I think it’s because I see side-hustles as both a potential outlet for passion, and a potential trap for disappointment. Let me explain:

What I love about side hustles

it’s a chance to spend time doing something you are good at and enjoy. This is the primary benefit in my eyes, as hopefully money doesn’t dictate our lives
it’s a chance to make some extra $ in your life, potentially with tax benefits superior to employee compensation
Having 2 sources of income adds a back-up in case your primary job slips. Or, your side hustle could potentially grow big enough to be your main gig.

What I don’t like about side hustles

Often it’s just a second job. You end up trading time for money doing something you dislike. For example, I personally don’t enjoy cleaning floors, so I’d call a night-gig as a janitor a second job, not a fun side hustle. This wouldn’t add happiness to my life.
Sometimes turning your hobby into a ‘job’ can kill the passion. For example, if I sold my painted rocks on Etsy, it might bring a few hundred dollars a month in revenue, but it completely kills the joy I get from giving my art away for free.

Why do I feel this way?

Mostly, I personally feel a potential trap to miss out on life.

Here’s a real-life example: during college my brother worked a night gig at a bank, reviewing mortgage applications for a year. This was tangentially related to his college studies and he made a small fortune for a college kid. Cool, right?

Well, he tells me he “missed every sunset of 2006 at the age of 23”. That supposed small fortune of money is now inconsequential to him, and he’s never going to be 23 again. In hindsight, he says the tradeoff wasn’t worth it.

But, I LOVE hearing about side gigs and second jobs that allow people to live more of life, not less. I do believe that side hustles can be a tradeoff worth making.

Here’s a happy example: my friend works for a pharmaceutical company, and she can pick up work at CVS as a pharmacist on Sundays (earning double-time!). For a few years in her early career she worked on Sundays at CVS, even though her primary job paid well. She never relied on this job, and she eventually bought an investment property and left that side gig. She’s happy with the trade-off she made, and genuinely enjoys what she does.

So what’s a good side hustle?

In my mind, the ideal side hustle would be both highly enjoyable and lucrative for the time input. In reality, I think many side hustles end up being a tradeoff between one or the other, which is just part of life I guess. And since life is full of tradeoffs, let’s not get discouraged when searching for a great side gig.

Side hustles of my past – the good, the bad and the meh

GOOD: Freelance bartender: I used to serve drinks at weddings when I was in my early 20’s, when my primary job was sales. I loved it! Pouring drinks, laughing, even dancing with people who were all celebrating – what’s not to love? But eventually I kind of grew out of it and focused on my sales career. I guess life moved on, but I have great memories from that time!

BAD: “Family conveyor belt”. In hindsight, this is more funny than bad. As a young teenager I took on a paper route. Unlike the movies, where a cute kid rides a bike to deliver newspapers, this job was delivering junk mail and it wore out the whole family! Mum had to drive me to pick up thousands of flyers, my 3 siblings and I set up a conveyor belt system on the kitchen table, and then as a family we packaged hundreds of stacks of different junk mail for delivery. The job paid almost nothing, and it literally took all 6 of us (parents helping too) to achieve the crazy-high quota of junk mail delivery I had. We all laugh about it now.

MEH: Second job at Post Office: I spent 6 months working nights doing postal sorting in my youth. Similar to my brother, I made what I thought was a buttload of money at the time. But I worked every night, ignored my friends, and missed out on some opportunities to enjoy life at that age. I have no regrets, but won’t be doing a hustle like that ever again.

Side hustles I wouldn’t mind trying

Part time tax preparer – I like this idea because by helping others file taxes, I can take on work seasonally as it suits me. It helps others and is a valuable, marketable skill. I’m a nerd and I find taxes kind of fun.
Nursing home assistant – a friend of mine picked up casual work caring for elderly during college while studying to be a Registered Nurse. Casual work paid well and the experience was valuable after she graduated. I do volunteering now, and can see myself stepping up to a caring role some day. Maybe.
Sports umpire – 2 different friends in my life have been football umpires, and both really enjoyed the job. In one case it was Australian football, where the umpires need to run A LOT! Not sure if I’d be fit enough.

Side hustles I probably will never try

Medical experiments. A friend of mine took part in a few drug trials during their college years for a few dollars. She ended up getting a weird unexplainable rash from it. The compensation was small. I’m all for medical advancement, but not sure I’m ready to sacrifice my health.
MLM’s. Ever had a call from a friend who wants you to try a new product, and then start selling it too? I can’t fathom selling to my friends and family, no matter how good the product or service is. I know MLM’s work for some people, but they’re not for me :)
AirBnB my house or spare bedroom. One of the reasons my wife and I are selling our rental properties is to get out of tenant management and dealing with renters. No matter how much we can make, renting out our home brings on too much stress for what it’s worth IMO.

What do a lot of successful side hustles have in common?

I think a few things.

Lucrative side gigs often exploit a unique skill or qualification a person might have, which usually allows them to offer services that demand a premium over minimum wage. Often that skill or qualification was gained from their primary job.
The side-gig often brings a benefit to a person’s primary job. This means that there are non-monetary benefits from the side-gig, like hands-on experience or widening your network, that are in turn leveraged by the primary job.
I think side gigs are often temporary in nature, like my pharmacist friend who worked toward a goal with her second job, achieved it, and then moved on.

FI people love the book “Your Money or Your Life” by Vicki Robin. Among other things, it discusses similarities between work and hobbies. One takeaway for me was that if you don’t consider getting paid, everything that you can get from a job can also be found in a hobby. That means passion, achievement, teamwork, socializing and serving others – all of these things can be found when you’re working for free!

So, are side hustles worth it?

I guess at the end of the day it all depends on your “why”.

Side hustles are a great opportunity to learn, follow our passions, and hopefully earn some extra $ on the side! But also, I often suspect that if we put that extra effort into our primary job or career development, we might be able to increase our primary income without a side hustle.

So personally, here’s my advice: if you need extra money and are looking for a side hustle, start by looking at your primary job. Can you put in the hours for a promotion or job change? Or is there a related service you can offer? Working in an area you already specialize in can lead to more income.

If not for money, think about your passions. Is there a way you can find casual work in this passion? If you never make any big money from your passion, will it still be time well spent? Probably!

Don’t forget – the world always needs more volunteers, and trust me there will be a rewarding role you can fit that is always worth your efforts.

Wishing you all a great week ahead, doing what you love.

– Joel

[This post, Side hustles and second jobs – are they even worth it?, was first published by 5am Joel on Elite Edge Money]

I’ve made $9,114 from side jobs so far this year…

5am Joel — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 05:30:00 +0000

Hey guys! I just added it up and realized I’ve earned $9,114 in extra money this year, on top of my regular salary. Woohoo, gig economy!

This isn’t a huge amount of extra cash, but it’s pretty dang good considering I haven’t been “hustling” that much this year. It’s been more of a collection of random gigs I’ve found or stumbled across in my spare time.

Here’s a breakdown of earnings from side jobs, and more importantly how I came across these opportunities in the first place.

$130 <—- buying and selling stuff online

$419 <—- selling *my friend’s* stuff online

$150 <—- “consulting”

$400 <—- modeling

$1,000 <—- new bank account bonuses

$1,100 <—- new credit card bonuses

$5,925 <—- extra SEO work for my employer

$9,114 Total

Make Extra Money by Asking for More Work From Your employer

By far my biggest extra bucks have come from additional contract work at my employer.

Technically, I’m a freelance writing contractor, so I can work for multiple companies at the same time. But I’ve only ever had 1 client — and I’d prefer to keep it this way.

In late December last year, I emailed my boss’s boss out of the blue and requested a 15-minute “catch up call.” It had been a while since we had spoken so I thought I’d say happy holidays and do a quick self-performance review.

**BTW – I encourage everyone to reach out to your senior management and request 15-minute calls once and a while. As long as you don’t waste their time, it helps you stay connected, front of mind, and it’s a great opportunity to share information with each other up and down the company food chain. This kind of initiative can boost your earning potential, too.**

Anyway, right at the end of my call, I dropped this simple line: “Hey, by the way, I have some spare time up my sleeve and have an interest in SEO work. If there are any teams you know of that could use my help, I’m available — and keen.”

Lo and behold, 2 weeks later another team manager reached out to me requesting some help with random SEO (search engine optimization) tasks in addition to my “day job.” Although I don’t really have any experience with SEO as a technical skill, I’m an excellent out-of-the-box thinker and have unmatched enthusiasm for new challenges. They offered me a whopping $75 per hour, and so far this year I’ve worked 79 hours on this freelance job.

The best part is that I can manage my own schedule, working a few hours here and there when I’m free. Since I get up at 5am every day, I can knock out a couple hours in the morning on Saturdays or Sundays without interfering much with my daily life.

I definitely realize how lucky I am and that these types of high-paying hourly jobs don’t grow on trees. But whenever friends ask me how I found work like this, I tell them → because I asked for it.

Get Supplemental Income From Credit Card and Bank Account Bonuses

My wife and I have signed up for 3 new bank accounts and 4 new credit cards so far in 2021. Here are the bonuses we’ve received:

$200 — PNC Bank checking account bonus

$400 (x2) — Capital One 360 Checking account (me and wife)

$300 (x2) — AMEX Blue (me and wife)

$200 — BOA Cash back credit card

$300 — Capital One SAVOR credit card

I typically only recommend bank account churning or opening new credit cards if you are extremely detail oriented, are good at taking notes, and can handle credit responsibly!

Most of these accounts take less than 15 minutes to set up, a little coordination to make sure you are hitting criteria to qualify for the bonus, then less than 15 minutes to shut down the account afterwards. Over the past 3-4 years my wife and I have opened 30+ accounts, and probably have earned close to $10k in extra cash. It’s not a huge amount, but for the time trade off, we think it’s always worth it!

To find the best current bank bonuses, I check this Doctor of Credit website regularly. And for credit card bonuses, here is the best page for that if you’re interested.

Earn Extra Income With Consulting

Late last year, I met a guy while surfing.

It was a calm day, we were both just sitting there on our boards – so I smiled, said hello, and struck up a random conversation. He worked at a bank, and I told him I write about finance. We exchanged emails in the water.

A few months went by, then I received an email from him. He wanted to learn more about the FIRE movement, and get some feedback on a financial app he’s building… He asked for a phone call, and offered to pay me $150 for 30 minutes of my time. Whoa!

I’ve never been a “consultant” before. But just by striking up random conversations, weird opportunities have started landing in my lap.

Get Additional Income by Modeling

For the $400 my wife and I made modeling, we landed this by just staying in contact with old friends. About 10 years ago we did some small photo shoots for a gal here in LA, and she reached out to see if we were interested in a quick private gig. It took about an hour to shoot, and they came to our house so there was no traveling time.

Sadly, the shoot was private so the photos will never be seen publicly. But, here’s an old one of me and my wife back in 2013 — someone spotted us on a marketing billboard at a real estate conference…

We were posing as a new couple buying a house.

Make Extra Money Buying and Selling Stuff Online

Finding and selling stuff online is probably my lowest pay per hour hobby. But I love it! I don’t care if I only profit a few dollars… It amazes me that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, and the lucky middleman can make a profit just by connecting people and negotiating.

Earlier this year I found a free surfboard, a compost tumbler, and an antique pocket watch at an estate sale nearby. I made a little over $100 from selling these on Craigslist and OfferUp.

One of my neighbors down the street caught wind that I liked selling stuff and asked me to help clear out some of his storage locker. He gave me a few boxes of stuff (mostly old Lladro figurines) and offered to split the profits with me if I sold them.

So far this year I’ve made $549 selling stuff online. Not a huge amount, but it pays for a month’s worth of groceries for us. :)

**Work That I didn’t take = $4,000+?**

Here’s a fun email I got from a buddy a few months ago…

(If you can’t read it, the offer was to get paid to go buy buckets of pool chlorine at Costcos.)

As much as I’d love to make quick cash for a few days, I cannot think of a more horrible second job than shopping at Costco. I turned this down and referred some other friends to help out.

Another opportunity I got was to work as a personal assistant (PA) on some photo shoots for a production company here in Los Angeles. I used to work odd jobs for a friend a few years ago and the pay was quite good! $350 per day, and the job of a PA is to just drive people around, get coffees on set, order lunches and run general errands. I really liked being a PA, but the timing didn’t work out for this particular gig.

*****

Well, there you have it. That’s how I made an extra $9,114 with side jobs so far this year … by asking for work, striking up conversations with strangers, keeping up with old friends, taking advantage of bonuses and just generally keeping my eyes open for opportunities.

More Ways to Make Extra Cash

Elite Edge Money has a mega list of side hustle ideas for your inspiration. Are you a budding pet sitter, dog walker, freelance writer, social media manager, or even mystery shopper? There are so many creative ways to make money outside your main job!

You guys doing any lucrative/fun/quirky freelance gigs these days?

Have a good one,

Joel

[This post, I’ve made $9,114 from side jobs so far this year…, was first published by 5am Joel on Elite Edge Money]

How to Rent Out Your Stuff for Extra Cash This Summer

5am Joel — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 05:30:00 +0000

I love peer to peer rental platforms! If you own something, you can rent it out to others when you’re not using it and make some spare cash. And if you want to use something, you can rent stuff instead of buying stuff.

Owners make money. Renters save money. Sharing stuff = less waste. It’s a win/win/win!

We’re all familiar with AirBnB, VRBO and house-swapping platforms. But did you know you can rent out your stand-up paddle board when you’re not using it? Maybe you’ve got spare tools in your shed you rarely use or a closet full of nice dresses that you barely wear… Peer to peer sharing platforms let you rent them out for extra cash.

I recently went down an Internet rabbit-hole and found a whole bunch of apps and sites I didn’t know existed. So I thought I’d make a list and share them with you all in case you can make some extra money renting out your stuff this summer (or save money by renting other people’s stuff!)

**Fair warning: Not every site or app is available in every country/city. Also make sure you check out and are comfortable with all the terms and conditions before signing up for anything!**

How to Rent Out Your Garage, Back Yard, or Swimming Pool

Swimming pool (~$50 per hour): Swimply is for neighborhood pools and hot tubs! If you’ve got a pool at home that you’re not using much this summer, consider renting it out hourly on the days you’re not using it.

Backyard doggy play area (~$15 per hour): If you have a large backyard that could make a good doggy play area, you can list it for rent on SniffSpot. There are a ton of pet owners that live in apartment complexes who would love to bring their pet to your place. (Just make sure they clean up the poop – or maybe you can charge extra for pooper scooper service?)

Home storage space or yard space ($$ varies per size — monthly income): Have spare room in your basement? Maybe an extra large driveway? Or perhaps you have extra space in your closet? Rent it out on one of these sites so people can pay you instead of buying a storage unit.

Neighbor lets you list your available home storage to locals. Car/boat storage, closet storage or just empty rooms. Like being a landlord at a storage facility, but for people’s random belongings at your home.
Store At My House helps you list your empty space, book and accept payments via their site, and start making monthly income quickly. :)

How to Rent Out Your Garden

Backyard meditation space ($20 – $50 per hour): Healing Gardens is one of the coolest platforms I found! If you own a beautiful garden or outside deck area, you can rent it out to people who can work remotely there, host a yoga class, or just sit in silence and meditate. People in busy cities LOVE to relax in quiet and hidden yards, so let them pay you to sit in yours!!

Planting or growing space ($$ varies per yard size): The site Shared Earth lets you list your unused residential garden space to people who want to grow veggies, flowers, etc. (Just make sure they’re not growing anything that’s illegal in your area.)

Another platform for gardens is YardYum. They connect landowners with gardeners who pay monthly to rent out gardening space.

Ways to Rent Out Your Land for Camping

If you thought my advice on investing in raw land was crap and you went ahead and bought some anyway… I have good news! Here are a few websites that will help you list your land to campers and RV-ers so you can generate some rental income:

Land for camping ($20-$100+ per night):

HipCamp is a growing community of nature lovers who camp and “glamp” on private land. “Anyone with a property that helps people connect with nature can be a Hipcamp Host!”

Tentrr is a newer platform and is growing in popularity now that the pandemic is letting up. Many public campsites are already full this summer so campers might love to check out your land instead!

HomeCamper covers a handful of U.S. states, and some international locations, such as Spain, Scotland, Wales and Australia. They also facilitate gardens, pools, and camper rentals.

Campspace seems to be primarily for the UK, Germany and Netherlands. Anyone own camp land out there?

How to Rent Out Your Car, Motorbike, Boat or RV

Boats and watercrafts (~$500+ per day, or ~$1000+ with a captain): With the site BoatSetter you can rent out your boat of any size when you’re not using it. You can also include yourself as a private captain and charge a whole lot more.

Also, GetMyBoat is a popular peer to peer rental site with ability to list worldwide. Both these sites also cover jetskiis, sailboats, pontoon boats and some water sports equipment.

Rent out your motorbike (~$60+ per day): Here are a few apps and websites that let you rent out your motorbike for extra money. Potential renters are vetted by the apps, they handle the security deposit and also offer various insurance coverage options.

RidersShare: Apparently some of the top hosts make more than $6k per month renting out their bikes to private riders!
TwistedRoad: It takes about 5 minutes to sign up and list your bike and then you can start accepting rentals and earning extra cash.
EagleShare: The parent organization here is Eagle Rider (I’ve personally rented from them before), but EagleShare is for people listing their own and unique bikes for rent. The rental platform handles both company owned and privately owned bikes.

Rent out your car (~$80 – $200+ per day): Car sharing is becoming incredibly popular. For people who don’t drive their car much, or have a second car sitting around, consider renting it out on one of these sites…

Turo is probably the most popular site for car rentals. Doesn’t matter if you have an old shitty Volkswagen Beetle or a fancy new Audi… Someone will probably want to rent it for the right price!
Getaround has more than 2 million users in the U.S.! If you’re a car owner with multiple cars you can list them all to make some extra money when you’re not using them.
HyreCar is interesting because they seem to be specific to Uber and Lyft rentals. So you could purchase a fleet of cars and rent them out to Uber and Lyft drivers. Kind of like setting up your own business!

Rent out your RV (~$100 – $200+ per night): If you own a camper van, motorhome, or a fancy tricked-out RV you can list it for rent on one of these awesome RV rental platforms…

Outdoorsy lets you list your RV rental for free and rent whenever you want, with full renter verification and vehicle insurance options.
RVezy can help you get daily or weekly rentals to make extra income from your unused camper.
RVShare has killer reviews, and most users report making more than $2,000 per month from renting out their camping vehicles. Some make a lot more!
Camplify is for you Aussies out there.

How to Rent Out a Parking Space

It’s amazing how much parking costs these days. If you own a parking spot in a desirable work location, or even if you live close to a sporting stadium and have spare car spots, you can rent them out daily or monthly for extra money with these sites:

Parking Space (~$20+ per day or up to ~$300 monthly):

Parqex is one of the biggest private marketplaces for parking spaces. You can choose your pricing, availability, etc and manage bookings through the app.
Spacer aims to get you monthly rent for your unused parking space. They take a small cut from the monthly fee when you’ve secured a renter.
CurbFlip handles all the lease agreement stuff, money collection and payments when you list your parking space for rent. You can rent your spot out hourly or monthly for extra income.
SpotHero is available in most major cities and also caters to people who have larger spaces and can handle business fleets of cars.
SpotOn is local to San Francisco for any of you people with spots up there. Busy cities are where the big money is made!

How to Rent Out Your Clothes for Extra Money

Fair warning… clothing rental is mostly for high end designer stuff — of which my wife and I own ZERO. But maybe you do!!? For any of y’all who have some stylish clothes hanging in your closet, try renting them out on one of these platforms:

Rent out your clothes ($$ varies greatly):

StyleLend is mostly for dresses, shoes, bags and accessories. They do 7 day lending so the renter has time for fitting if they’re wanting clothes for a specific date or event.
Tulerie is a peer to peer clothing app that helps people rent your higher end designer apparel. Instead of buying clothes themselves, they can rent from you to see how they like it first.
RentMyWardrobe lets you “put cash in your pocket with what’s in your closet!” What a great tag line.

Make Extra Cash Renting Out Baby Gear

Baby gear is a pain in the a$$ to travel with — or so I’m told — so why not help out people visiting your city by renting gear for their little ones instead of lugging it on the plane. Here are a couple sites you can rent out your baby gear for extra money:

Rent out baby stuff ($$ pricing varies depending on the equipment/service):

BabyQuip lets parents travel light and travel happy! When you sign up as a Quality Provider you can rent out your *safe and clean* baby gear in your city.
Rents4Baby is great for people who have a ton of baby stuff, or want to start their own rental business. Rentals are a growing trend, so jump on the bandwagon. :)

Where to Rent Out Your Tools and Equipment:

If you own unique tools that are perfect for a short job, consider renting them out to people in need. The following platforms let you rent out small tools, power tools, tractors and large special equipment, too.

Tools and equipment ($$ depends on your gear):

Sparetoolz is an app made to connect tool owners and tool renters. Just snap some photos of your spare tools, set your rates, and manage bookings through the app.
FriendWithA is a much broader peer to peer site but it has a large tool section covering a bunch of random tools you can rent out.
BURLY allows you to list and rent out anything from small drills and chainsaws all the way up to mid-sized machines like forklifts and diggers.
RentMyEquipment covers Atlanta, Nashville and a few select cities across the U.S. for household and large yard rental tools.
DOZR is for HUGE construction machines. Anyone got a bulldozer or farm tractor they want to rent out?

How to Rent Out Sports Gear, Bikes and Music Equipment

Do you have barely used sports gear but don’t want to sell it quite yet? What about a guitar sitting in your living room that you rarely play? Rent them out on these sites:

Bikes, surfboards, guitars (~$20-$100+ per day):

FRetish is a site dedicated to instruments, music equipment, and recording space. While renting your stuff out, you might even meet some cool people to start a band with. ;)

Spinlister helps people list and rent their bikes! Road bikes, mountain bikes, or even fixed gear bikes get decent rental rates in various locations. They also have listings for snowboards, skis, paddle boards and surfboards.
FriendwithA has sections for electronics, music and video equipment, drones, and various sporting gear like skateboards and scooters. Rent your stuff out for extra money this summer.

Other Ways to Do Peer to Peer Rentals

More cool sites I found while searching around…

Loanables helps you rent out all types of random stuff like camping gear, party rentals, trailers, inflatable movie projectors, or even bouncy castles.
Rentah is for any general item. You can make money renting out your sewing machine, kayak, or rollerblades.
Rent Not Buy has a number of categories you can list your random items under. Fair warning, this site seems a little basic and doesn’t have great search features, but still has a big user base!

Rent Out Your Friendship?

Lastly, if you are particularly good at companionship, know how to listen to people, or are good at partying and hanging out with crowds, you can rent yourself out, as a friend!

Rent A Friend lets you list yourself as a friend for hire. They claim you can make $3,000 to $8,000 a month if you work full time! Hmmm… Anyone want to hire me?

Lastly, instead of renting out your stuff, you might just consider getting rid of it completely using selling apps. That way you can pocket a larger amount of cash upfront, and not have to deal with people!

Happy Friday and have fun whatever you get up to this summer!

Cheers,

Joel

[This post, How to Rent Out Your Stuff for Extra Cash This Summer, was first published by 5am Joel on Elite Edge Money]

Zero-Waste Side Hustle: Renting Out Moving Boxes

5am Joel — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 05:30:21 +0000

[Hello friends! Top o’ the morning to ya! (Not sure why I just wrote that – I definitely don’t speak this way in real life.)

Today’s guest post is from Gary at Financial Fives, sharing about his side hustle of renting out moving boxes! What I love about Gary’s story is that he’s truly proud of the value he’s providing to the world. Starting any business is difficult, but it’s 100X easier if you have a passion for the industry you’re in! (Not to mention, if you love what you do, you can continue your fun work even after reaching ]

*****

How I Started a Side Hustle That Connected My Passion to My Skills

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably had enough about “hustle culture” and videos or podcasts about “maximum productivity” and waking up at 4 am to meditate. Don’t worry, that’s not the point of this post! I myself have garnered an aversion to those who advocate acting like a machine and accounting for every waking minute on your calendar.

I don’t know about you, but I like to enjoy life and live in the present, and if that takes me longer to reach FI, I’m 100% fine with that. Tomorrow is never guaranteed, so if we don’t take the time to bask in the sun or bike through a trail, what’s the point of all of that hustle?

With that being said, I think having a side hustle, as humble or lucrative as it might be, is a strategic way to reach FI. As you’ve surely heard, you can only cut your expenses so much, but your earning potential is virtually unlimited. Since I was a little late to the party being a millennial who graduated college the same year Instagram was born, my side hustle came out of a need to feel like I am doing something to fix one of the biggest problems in my view: trash.

I read that the United States is the #1 trash-producing country in the world! That’s something I’m certainly not proud to be #1 in. I wish I had the mind of an engineer to create compostable snack wrappers or start the company that came up with the coveted Hydroflask. Luckily though, I did have a knack for sales and negotiation, so that worked in my favor.

My Side Hustle: Renting Moving Boxes

My side hustle is a moving box rental company called California Box Rental, which was born after seeing the heaps of cardboard boxes piled next to dumpsters next to apartments and dorms by UCLA, where I went to college. I found that there were other companies that offered this concept in Canada, so I figured since there was nothing like that in my hometown of Sacramento, CA, that I would start one!

How a Moving Box Rental Company Works

My business works like this: A customer contacts us looking for boxes to move or to organize, we help them create a rental package, we deliver the boxes and other equipment to their doorstep, they keep them for up to 4 weeks, then we pick them back up! No waste, no building up boxes or packing tape, no damaged items from overstacking or soggy cardboard after a rain.

Here’s what the boxes look like:

These boxes are incredibly durable. We’ve had maybe 10 boxes break or become damaged out of our entire inventory over the last 8 years, and that’s usually due to mishandling. They are made from commercial grade recycled plastic, and the biggest issue if they’re used too heavily is the hinges or top flaps can become damaged. I’d say they have a life of 8-10 years.

As far as rental rates, we don’t rent per box, rather per “bundles” catering to how big the client’s job is. The most popular package we rent is our House Bundle, which is 50 boxes, a few rolling dollies, a wardrobe box, etc and that rents for $189 per week. We also charge $100 for round trip delivery within 25 miles of our storage facility.

When the boxes aren’t in use, we store them in a storage unit at a self-storage facility. We’re still pretty small, and my business partner owns a moving company, so it made sense to save money to store them there rather than rent a warehouse.

Since sustainability and zero waste is a huge passion of mine, and this kind of business requires little startup capital (It cost me less than $2,500 to get up and running) I figured I’d give it a go, and we’ve been going strong for 8 years!

Get more inspiration: 80+ real-life side hustle stories from Elite Edge Money readers

Start-Up Challenges for a Side Hustle

The hardest part of a business is just getting started. I would say the biggest challenges we had to overcome when we started was convincing people that this model was the new way to move. The idea of renting reusable boxes rather than buying cardboard ones was new to virtually everyone in town, even though it was flourishing in other cities. Even if people see our reviews or are contacted by us, we used to be easily dismissed. Now, the sustainability movement is really helping us.

The hardest part of growing the business is customer acquisition, but also managing and cleaning inventory. When you are not a high-volume business, you can’t pay someone by the hour to clean boxes or deliver them. Also, when a customer orders 100 boxes, they don’t always check to make sure all the inventory is there, so it becomes a “he said she said” situation if things aren’t accounted for properly. Other times, we might miss a box that is stacked to be cleaned and sanitized, and if a customer gets a dirty box they are not too happy!

One thing I wish we did differently was having a better marketing plan in place so word of mouth spreads quicker. I always thought that the best brands don’t advertise, their quality speaks for itself and their customers are their biggest fans. We have 5-star reviews across the board, so our customers do love us, but I think limiting our marketing budget is also limiting our revenue. It’s just a side hustle to me though, I don’t think I have the capacity for running it full time!

Starting a Passive vs. Active Side Hustle

The reason I went with starting a business from scratch was partially for bucket list reasons, but also for control. When you start your own business, you control the price, who your target market is, how to market your product/service, and so on. I knew that if I put substantial effort upfront, it could turn into more of a passive income stream for me, rather than exchanging my time for money.

This is key; you want to decide if your side hustle should be trading your time directly for income, or if you want to put a little more effort upfront so that it’s more of a passive income stream, allowing you to focus on other projects (such as writing a book!). It’s not a bad thing if you don’t want to go the passive income route, in fact, it’s very noble! If you have a passion or knack for writing, designing websites, or interviewing people, there is plenty of money to be made by doing that. Some people, including myself, also get satisfaction out of doing something productive in our off hours to earn an income, which we can then use to reward ourselves or motivate ourselves that we can in fact reach FI.

For California Box Rental, I figured if I put in effort upfront to create preferred vendor incentives with realtors, mortgage brokers, moving companies, and property management firms, that I would have to put in less effort later on. We are primarily a referral focused business, we don’t really advertise at all. While I’m sure we could earn more if we advertise more, my goal is to invest in an amazing customer experience so they act like our biggest promoters. So far it’s working, and we have a 5-star rating on both Google and Yelp!

This business model has also allowed me to live across the country and not be tied to our physical service area. I handle all customer inquiries, invoices, and marketing, and I have a business partner who is local that coordinates deliveries and cleaning of the inventory.

My business is not 100% passive, but it requires very little work outside of marketing to draw up a rental agreement and send it to the customer. Any time our boxes are in the customer’s possession, we are earning money. Whether they rent for 1 week or 4 weeks adds no more work on my end, yet we charge them more.

The Future of Moving Boxes, and Life After FI..

My goal with California Box Rental is to continue to grow it because we are the only show in town for now, and the sustainability movement is catching on quickly. Hopefully, in a few years, we’ll either triple in size or be acquired, so that there is a lot more capital to focus more on commercial and multifamily residential markets.

Even after achieving FI, I’m still planning to stay busy and work on things that interest me. I would like to become more involved in local policies and also philanthropy/advocacy around my passions of conservation, sustainability, and multimodal transit. Another goal of mine down the road is to create a coworking/entrepreneurial food hall in my hometown to foster innovation and also have a cool place to hang out!

My advice to you if you want to start a side hustle business is (1) find something you’re passionate about and that you’d do for free (2) find a way to monetize it and (3) don’t get in over yourself or risk your all of your hard-earned money in something that may not work out. Start small, do your research, watch and listen to others who have come before you, and have fun! If it doesn’t work, it’s not the end of the world. It’s a lesson to do better in the future, not a failure.

*****

Gary Grewal is a remote financial planner, entrepreneur, current nomader, and author of Financial Fives: The Top 325 Ways to Save, Earn, and Thrive to Retire Before 65. He also blogs over at financialfives.com.

Have a great weekend!!

[This post, Zero-Waste Side Hustle: Renting Out Moving Boxes, was first published by 5am Joel on Elite Edge Money]

How I Started a Quarantini 🍸 Business During the Covid Pandemic

5am Joel — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 05:30:00 +0000

[Morning everyone! HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

Got a fun story for y’all today… My buddy Alise, aka the “Pandemic Gift Fairy,” is sharing how she started a quarantini business last year — it’s called StirCrazi!

What I love most about Alise’s story is the combination of GRIT + trial and error. If you’re interested in starting an online business or want to jump on a growing trend, check out how it’s done below. ]

*******

Remember in-person parties? Well, that is where this story begins.

Way back in 2014, my pal Carrie brought her own homemade infused alcohol to a New Year’s Eve party I attended. It was a total hit! I immediately fell in love with her crazy and exotic flavors, like beet vodka and carrot tequila.

As a health conscious person with a savory tooth, I was enthralled with a drink mixer that wouldn’t leave me with a sugar hangover the next day. And sure enough, I was able to start January 1 feeling more refreshed than I would have with a sugary champagne crash.

After that party, the idea of liquor infusion kits was always circling in my brain. But it would take many years and a few months in isolation before the concept began to blossom.

Fast Forward to Covid and 2020

Like millions of others, the pandemic left me jobless and with just a little bit of free time on my hands.

Suddenly everyone I knew had a serious case of cabin fever (at best), or were completely panicking with stress (at worst). I wanted to find a way to reconnect from afar and cheer people up.

I decided to put together some care packages for friends, family, and first responders to send my loved ones a smile.

In them, I included a ‘Quarantini Kit’ of dried fruits and spices that could be enjoyed as tea or as a liquor infusion.

My first infusion experiment was a hot toddy mix called Great Balls of Fire. I knew everyone would do well with an extra splash of power foods and vitamins in their nightcap or tea. That is why my ‘Quarantini’ starred a lineup of immunity-boosting ingredients that also happened to taste great, like cinnamon, lemon, and ginger.

The gift packages to first responders and close family were a huge hit across the board. Everyone who received a Quarantini kit responded with requests for more. The response was unanimous: This was a fantastic gesture to light up an otherwise dark moment.

That Was When I Suspected I Was on to Something

Instead of diving head first into a futile and competitive job search, why not make 2020 the year I would finally bootstrap my own e-commerce business?

I’d read The Four Hour Work Week in college and had been attempting to start a business from scratch for nearly a decade. I can say from first-hand experience that starting a business is a lot trickier than those Tai Lopez’ “get rich quick” YouTube ads would like you to believe.

On the side of my day job, I’d dabbled in everything from fitness apps and wall tapestries to (more successfully) eBooks and party costumes.

As an always aspiring entrepreneur, I know how invaluable customer input is. To make sure I was on the right track, I texted every friend in my phone to ask if they would actually purchase a ‘Quarantini kit’ for themselves.

The answer was a resounding ‘No’. Instead of getting discouraged, I listened to my gut. I had a feeling their disinterest was only because I hadn’t properly conveyed my vision.

Instead, I dug deeper into the data of demand. Sure enough, Google trends for ‘tea’ and ‘liquor’ were spiking during the pandemic.

The data was undeniable. Stay-at-home orders had sent liquor sales skyrocketing. Clearly people were looking for ways to relax and stay calm.

That is why the second flavor I invented was Lavender Lemonade, known for its soothing aromatherapeutic scent and flavor. It is also just fun and exotic to drink lavender.

Making Prototypes During a Pandemic

For the first batches, all of the materials — from the jars to the fruit — came from my local Trader’s Joes and Walmart.

This was during some of the strictest ‘shelter in place’ phases. Waiting in line for materials took me hours, and I was limited to the stores that were allowed to be open because they were selling necessities.

I dried all of the fruit and vegetables in my oven myself. This resulted in lots of burned fruit and even more painful arm burns.

Fortunately, my husband and I were also responsible for the flavor testing and creation. Shots of lavender flavored vodka became a welcome distraction from the burn wounds.

I spent a day on my couch crafting up the label and packaging for my ‘Quarantinis’. The original design was inspired by old fashioned apothecary labeling from the 1800s.

(StirCrazi’s original label prototype)

I put the photoshopped prototype on Etsy, and sent the link to all my friends again to see if they would purchase it.

This time the answer was a resounding ‘Yes.’ Everyone responded with texts and voicemails of enthusiasm and excitement. To my surprise and delight, one of my friends even made a purchase – on his own free will!

My test subjects also responded with a rainbow of useful feedback in everything from what flavors they wanted to what a reasonable price range might be. I knew I was really on to something when people even wanted to pay more than I was asking.

This Was the Match That Lit the Dynamite

There is nothing like the feeling of the first sale on your online store to make you swell with joy, pride, and endless excitement for the opportunity of what’s coming next. I might as well have just gotten a double deal from Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner on Shark Tank.

But it wouldn’t be long before my elation would transform into … panic.

The Quarantini Craze

Somehow the Etsy algorithm overlords decided to shine their luck on me. Or I was featured in a newsletter or magazine somewhere. I’m still not certain of how or where this happened.

I went from ecstatic to have two sales … to my entire store blowing up overnight. I used to love the ‘Cha-ching’ cash register noise my phone made when I had an Etsy order. That cha-ching sound was starting to induce panic.

As my husband and I arrived at Target to pick up more mason jars, my phone was buzzing with one order, then two, then five, then 10. My operation was barely a month old and I had to get to work fast.

The Challenge of Scaling My Start-Up Business

The sudden demand meant I had to put a fulfillment process in place, get business insurance, file for an LLC, apply for my cottage license, and find a way to outsource production to a white label or co-manufacturer who could handle a higher level of demand (a challenge I am still navigating).

And meanwhile, I had orders to fulfill.

I managed to outsource the actual production of my teas quickly enough to a local tea supplier at a commercial kitchen, but I was still responsible for the assembling, packaging, and shipping of every single order.

That is how my tiny apartment turned into a StirCrazi pick-and-pack headquarters. Every day in a sweltering heat wave I would pack and ship hundreds of boxes, slathering everything in industrial grade disinfectant.

Thankfully, Etsy has a feature where you can request a post office pickup, so our mail delivery person and I got to know each other really well. I eventually had to bake him a batch of cookies as a thank you for the hundreds of packages he was hauling back and forth from our door to his truck daily.

As Mother’s Day and Cinco de Mayo approached, I invented new seasonal flavors including Rose All May (rose hibiscus orange) and Cinco de Drinko (spicy margarita). Soon after, my bouquet inspired liquor infusion gift pack for Mother’s Day was blowing up.

A Bulk Order: My Next Big Break

I remember driving to the post office higher than cloud nine — strangely over the moon to be delivering 20 packages to the post office. I had dreamed of starting an e-commerce business all my life. Now here it was becoming reality.

That is when the big call came in. An event planner in Seattle had spotted my Etsy store and wanted to place a party order of 40 to arrive in time for Cinco de Mayo (in four days). A company team offsite event that she was planning had been cancelled because of COVID-19, and she was brainstorming an alternative Zoom party for the staff ‘pick me up’ instead.

This was it! I had really made it to the big leagues now. We worked together to create a custom order. She was the best customer any new business owner could ask for, even talking me into charging more than I had originally quoted and requesting extra refill packs and flavored sugars.

That is what prompted me to expand into new product lines.

(StirCrazi refill packs and flavored sugar is born!)

This was only the beginning of many bulk rush corporate orders. Each one often involved pulling late nights to package and ship. (All in the unbearable heat of my second-story unit with no air conditioning.)

We began providing large orders for everything from Zoom bachelorette parties to corporate client mailings for sales teams.

My first customers were my most incredible cheerleaders and advocates. Their enthusiastic reviews were the rocket fuel I needed to launch and keep going.

As a partnerships manager in a past life, my corporate experience came in handy when it came time to assemble a team of influencers who were true champions for the brand.

And finally, my product photos all shot on my iPhone were in desperate need of an upgrade, so I purchased a light box to give them a clean, crisp background.

StirCrazi 2.0

Because I was bootstrapping, it was up to me to design everything myself, from the website to the product labels. Meanwhile, I excavated the deepest depths of Google to find allies and advisors in the form of packaging designers, food lawyers, suppliers and more.

Then there was the great mason jar shortage of 2020. The pandemic spawned a mass food-canning frenzy and I found myself scouring the empty aisles of every convenience store at 9 pm in desperate search for a mason jar 12-pack.

And the Challenges of E-Commerce Didn’t Stop There

E-commerce is a mighty mountain to climb, full of beautiful views and treacherous obstacles, such as finding a reliable supplier, building out the supply chain, and the headache from hell that is Facebook ads.

Speaking of mountains, the excessive shipping demands caused me to start obsessively hoarding a pile of packing materials and boxes in a corner of my apartment. My spouse and I lovingly called it ‘Trash Mountain.’

Despite everything, we launched our store in September 2020 to sales and rave reviews.

StirCrazi is born!

As much as I would love to claim my glory for the whole sha-bang, the true credit goes to a dream team of pals who weren’t even on payroll.

Somehow, I talked a brilliant videographer friend of mine from college into making the world’s best promo video for a price exceedingly beneath his talents. For this, I will be forever indebted and grateful.

I also couldn’t have done it without the many friends and mentors who did everything from help me brainstorm color-popping ingredients to nudge me to venture out of Etsy into my own Shopify store.

And of course I owe it all to my first customer, who even came back again and again to order quarantinis for his entire family.

What’s Next for StirCrazi?

Due to a series of fortunate events, my husband and I reached our financial independence goal early and plan to spend a solid year travelling the second this madness is all over!

Now I’m looking for investors and partnerships to scale StirCrazi operations out of house. This experience has been a wonderful and wild ride, but StirCrazi has grown as far as I can take it.

If you know anyone who might be interested, please reach out! ;)

How to Start Your Own e-Commerce Business

Do you also dream of Four Hour Work Weeks and Shark Tank pitches?

Be warned: Outliers like Suzy Batiz of PooPourri and Moiz Ali of Native Deodorant make e-commerce look glamorous and lucrative. Personally, I have found the online store business model to be one of the more labor-intensive adventures you can choose.

If you are looking to start an e-commerce business yourself, I wrote a handy dandy guide about the exact process I followed. You can read it here.

If you want to become the world’s greatest eCom entrepreneur, get ready to also become the world’s greatest package shipper.

Nevertheless, starting StirCrazi was the experience of a lifetime. The most magical part (aside from writing off my vodka and wine tab as a business expense) was the opportunity to act as a conduit of love in a time of unrest.

My customers entrusted me with the most important task of connecting with their loved ones when fear and social isolation was at its peak. Reading the notes of hope and encouragement my customers sent to one another is still enough to give me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

Afterall, what more important job can one ask for than ‘Pandemic Gift Fairy’?

******

Alise also blogs about FIRE-related topics over at MoneySelfMade.

Have a great weekend!

– Joel

[This post, How I Started a Quarantini 🍸 Business During the Covid Pandemic, was first published by 5am Joel on Elite Edge Money]

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Where to Rent Out Your Tools and Equipment:

How to Rent Out Sports Gear, Bikes and Music Equipment

Other Ways to Do Peer to Peer Rentals

Rent Out Your Friendship?

Zero-Waste Side Hustle: Renting Out Moving Boxes

How I Started a Side Hustle That Connected My Passion to My Skills

My Side Hustle: Renting Moving Boxes

How a Moving Box Rental Company Works

Start-Up Challenges for a Side Hustle

Starting a Passive vs. Active Side Hustle

The Future of Moving Boxes, and Life After FI..

How I Started a Quarantini 🍸 Business During the Covid Pandemic

Fast Forward to Covid and 2020

That Was When I Suspected I Was on to Something

Making Prototypes During a Pandemic

This Was the Match That Lit the Dynamite

The Quarantini Craze

The Challenge of Scaling My Start-Up Business

A Bulk Order: My Next Big Break

StirCrazi 2.0

And the Challenges of E-Commerce Didn’t Stop There

What’s Next for StirCrazi?

How to Start Your Own e-Commerce Business

**Work That I didn’t take = $4,000+?**