I got back from vacation about a half hour ago. After getting a quick bite to eat (it’s nice to have a home cooked meal!) and talking to my parents about the trip, I just came up to check how much money I’ve made.
I just figured out that I made roughly $135 – WHILE I WAS ON VACATION!
I didn’t touch a computer once for over a week, nor did I use any other type of technology to get Internet access. This happened all on 100% complete autopilot. That, my friends, is the power of passive income.
I actually did better this week than I did each of the first 3 weeks of the month – go figure.
Anyway, a little about my vacation.
#1 – I was a little perplexed at how people have coined the phrase “southern hospitality”. Maybe it was just a coincidence and for some reason the people in Myrtle Beach and the surrounding areas are an exception, but I met some very rude and disrespectful people while I was down there. It was mostly employees though, so maybe that had something to do with it. I still love the South
#2 – Although I was on vacation, I didn’t use that as an excuse to do absolutely nothing with my body for an entire week. Although I’ll admit I ate quite badly for how I usually eat, I did a few things to counteract that.
1 – Instead of walking up the 3 flights of steps of our condo, I would hop up them on 1 leg.
2 – Me and my girlfriend went for some long walks on the beach.
3 – A few times during the week I did a set of elevated plyometric push-ups and some V-ups.
All in all it was an amazing trip. I spent a bit more than I should have, but I still came back with $101 so it wasn’t too bad. I read some great books, spent some quality time with my girlfriend, and got a much needed break. Tomorrow it’s back to work.
Now excuse me while I go read my 250+ e-mails that are waiting for me. I think I’m going to need a mighty big cup of tea.
PS – For the past 2 weeks or so I’ve been meaning to put the book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” on my wish list on amazon. When I got back from vacation I had an e-mail from Brian at Genius Types who’s giving it away for free. Maybe the law of attraction will have an intervening hand in this one.
When you first start investing, it’s a wise decision to first make a plan on exactly what type of investment you want to start.
Since there are a lot of investments you could make, there’s no point in putting your money into an investment that you really don’t care about in the least bit. Of course you probably won’t be in love with the investments, but you should at least be a tiny bit interested.
You should first figure out exactly what type of investment you’d like to make. Do you want to invest in a business? If so, online or offline? Or would you rather invest in something that you have to do pretty much no work for, such as a money manager?
Some of the options for investing in offline business include candy vending, franchises, brick-and-mortar business (such as a clothing shop), and buying existing businesses.
Online business investments can include things such as becoming an affiliate, building an information blog or website, wholesaling, starting an eBay business (which could also be considered offline), or even a mix of a few of them. For example my website is an information website, but I make money when other people click through my affiliate links as well.
For some reason some people have a problem with website owners making money by promoting products, but I’m not exactly sure why. I’m always glad to help someone make an extra buck.
There are other ways to invest that could be considered the “traditional” ways, such as investing in Real Estate, Stocks, Forex, Mutual Funds, or Tax Liens.
No matter what you’d like to invest in, you need to make sure that you have some type of interest in it. You’re going to be spending considerable amounts of time, especially in the beginning, in order to do well from these investments. Therefore you need to have the interest so you stay on top of your game and keep studying on how to make even more money.
Some are more passive than others, but I would suggest investing in something you care about more than something that’s purely passive.
Why Should You Be Interested In Your Investments?
If you aren’t interested at all in your investments, chances are that you’re going to either make almost no money or very little. You won’t put the needed research into it, stay on top of your financial statement, or really care what happens.
For example lets take 2 people:
Person A is a person who doesn’t want anything to do with their investments. They would rather have someone else such as a mutual fund company handle all their money for them. They start off with $10,000 to invest and invest it into a mutual fund. Since an average mutual fund returns about 8% per year, they receive $800 for the full year in returns. They did no work, but only made $800.
Person B also has $10,000 but they decide to go a different route. They first decide to purchase Site Build It for only $300 since they love talking about a subject they are interested in (maybe a hobby?) and want to share their knowledge. They work a few hours per week putting the website together, and by the end of the first year they have 100 pages on the website, making them about $400/month in income. Let’s pretend that throughout the whole year they’ve averaged $200/month, since they make nothing in the beginning and more towards the end.
Since they still have $9700 left to invest, they decide to put it into a stock account. They spend $200 and spend 2 months learning about stocks and how to make the right picks, so by the time they actually start using that money they’re down to $9500. Now since they’re knowledgeable and are managing their own money, they get a return of 20% for the year.
Breakdown At The End Of Year 1
Person A – $10,800 (8% return)
Person B – $11,400 from stocks. Another $2,400 from the website, and a continuing $400/month from the website which rises almost every month. Total – $13,800 (21% return)
Now that may not seem like much, but lets add that up for the next 10 years.
Person A – $22.196.40
Person B – If he invests that $400 per month and continues to average 20% per year returns on his stocks, his total will be an astonishing $ 221,993.84! It’s amazing how compound interest works isn’t it?
Of course an average person might not be able to see those types of returns, but if you’re focused on achieving financial independence and are willing to stick with something your interested in learning about, it’s definitely possible.
If you’re just starting out investing, please invest in something you’re interested in already or wouldn’t mind learning about. It’s always better to manage your own money rather than letting another person do it.
As of right now, I’m investing in my website ( I write about tea, which I love), and I just started to invest in candy vending, which I will officially start when I get back from vacation on the 31st. I’m also studying stocks which will be my next investment probably towards the end of the summer, and real estate will most likely follow that.
These are all areas of investing that I’m interested in and love to study because I know that for every new detail I study, it’s a chance to make me a better return.
Invest in something you’re interested in, and be willing to do a small amount of work in order to create yourself much higher returns on your money. It might only take a few small hours a week, but it’s well worth it!
As a little side note, I’m leaving for Myrtle Beach with my girlfriend and her family tomorrow so I won’t be able to post until I get back. I’ll probably post again around the first of July. Enjoy the next week!
I’ve been wanting to write a post about high fructose corn syrup and other health traps that manufacturers want you to fall in, and this morning I got an e-mail that I felt compelled to show you. So instead of me writing a post, I’ll let them do the talking
Exposing (and Evading) Grocery Store Fat Traps
By Shane Ellison, M.Sc.
My wife recently pigged out on beef jerky. What was supposed to be light, healthy snacking turned into an all-out eating binge. Her ravenous consumption of the stuff made me think it must be an especially good brand. I was in a hurry when I bought it at my local health food store – and that’s where I messed up big time. Ignoring the label, I was caught by the number one grocery store fat trap – which was the cause of my wife’s abnormal appetite.
A grocery store fat trap is nothing more than a scheme designed by food manufacturers to make you eat more of something that you think is healthy. These foods and food additives are fat fertilizer. They are great for a company’s bottom line, but really bad for your “bottom.”
Right before she threw her head back to dump the last crumbs of the beef jerky into her mouth, my wife turned the bag over to read the fine-print ingredients. She gasped, “Why the hell did you buy this! It’s loaded with high-fructose corn syrup!”
High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is fat fertilizer on steroids. And she knows it. A very fit mom, she keeps her lean and muscular build by avoiding grocery store fat traps.
HFCS transforms people into eating machines. Once consumed, it sets into motion a chemical cascade that begins with spiked insulin and ends with feel-good molecules known as “endorphins.” Intoxicated by artificial feel-good, the brain is unable to sense overeating and demands more, more, more – and the excess calories get stored in your body.
I’ve even heard of kids accidentally taking bites out of their fingers when under the influence of HFCS. Worse yet, many children who overindulge in Frankenfoods that contain HFCS and other sugars eventually become diabetic.
From beef jerky to bread and even spaghetti sauce, HFCS has infiltrated most processed foods and turned them into fat traps. Avoid this ingredient at all cost!
But that’s not the only trap lurking in grocery stores.
“Fat-free” labels
These hoodwink millions of unsuspecting victims, and have been a goldmine for the food industry since 1993. The obese seek out this label in hopes of waking up skinny. It never happens – but that doesn’t stop them from getting ensnared over and over again. I can hear the rationale: “It just seems so plausible. I’m fat, so I should eat fat-free foods.” Wrong.
After the fat is removed, sugar is added. Sugar is great if you’re at a birthday party, but that’s it. Like HFCS, it is nothing more than fat fertilizer and a heart attack waiting to happen. Look for it listed as sucrose, dextrose, or cane sugar on the labels of your favorite foods. Then buy something else – like an all-natural food high in healthy fat.
Healthy fat – which you can find in grass-fed beef, seeds, nuts, avocados, and eggs – is essential for proper growth, development, and the maintenance of good health. It provides your body with vital energy, without causing you to gain weight. In sharp contrast to carbohydrates, sugar, and trans-fats, healthy fats tell your body to burn fat and make you feel fuller quicker. Add them to your grocery list.
Artificial sweeteners
This trap gets most weekend warriors. “Energy” bars, protein powders, and sugar-free goodies – each and every one of them is loaded with drugs disguised as sweeteners. The widespread belief that these nicely packaged foods and drinks are good for you is a perfect example of how marketing strategies supersede medical science and common sense.
Artificial sweeteners make your body lose its natural ability to count calories. If athletes cannot distinguish between proper eating and overeating caused by artificial flavors, they will never reach their fat-loss or muscle-building goals, period. Exercise becomes a waste of time. Artificial flavors include sucralose (Splenda), aspartame, acesulfame K, saccharin, and neotame.
MSG
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) has several aliases you should be on the lookout for, including hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed protein, hydrolyzed plant protein, plant protein extract, sodium caseinate, calcium caseinate, yeast extract, textured protein, autolyzed yeast, and hydrolyzed oat flour.
This white, crystalline amino acid is made in a lab and then added to meat products and most canned or packaged foods to “enhance flavor.” One small problem: It doesn’t have any flavor. It just enhances overeating – and the food manufacturer’s bottom line.
Once consumed, this fat fertilizer not only spikes insulin, it also lowers the hormones that ward off obesity, premature aging, and diabetes: IGF-1 and human growth hormone. And if that’s not enough to scare you off, it can be damaging to brain cells too.
Consider the shocking findings by German scientists who recently warned that their country should abandon the use of MSG at once. Why? They found that pregnant mothers consuming this fat trap were giving birth to children who were insulin-resistant.
Apparently, fetuses can be doomed to overeating for life, thanks to neuronal damage caused by Mom’s MSG-eating habit. The damage was most prevalent in a specialized group of nerve cells in the medulla oblongata, thalamus, or hypothalamus – the areas of the brain that control proper eating and metabolism. This might be one explanation for the drastic increases in childhood obesity worldwide.
Some things are worth dying for. Fat traps are not. If you want to live thin and slim, be alert to these common grocery store fat traps. You might have to dedicate some extra time to carefully reading food labels… but you’ll never fall victim to them again.
Ok back to me. It’s hard to know how many disgusting chemicals are in our food. Unfortunately, the we’ll never convince these companies to stop putting those chemicals in the food because that’s how they make money – from their consumers getting “extra” fat and less healthy.
From now on, try to make it a point to memorize the chemicals they’ve mentioned and look for them in the ingredients labels on the back of your food.
By the way, the company I got that e-mail from was www.earlytorise.com I’ve been getting a newsletter from them for over a year now and I love it.
Jeremy
PS – I’m going to be posting a bit less from now on. Only once or twice a week depending on my schedule. I’ve realized that this is my least passive income and I need to focus more on things that will accumulate wealth quicker for me. Therefore I’m going to write when all other things for my “list of the day” is done. I apologize if this makes anyone mad, but sometimes it’s important to prioritize how you’re spending your time.
PPS – Thanks to Kenneth for giving me my first tip! Very much appreciated
BlogMarks
Furl
Newsvine
Rojo
Email This to a Friend
If you like this then please subscribe to the 