Growing Money

As part of my journey to achieving financial success, I have always been juggling multiple projects and pushing myself to learn more and work harder. I have a full-time job and a stable income now, but I always want to achieve more. I know I have to work harder and smarter everyday to become better than the person I was yesterday. I am always looking for opportunities to make more money and this year has opened doors to higher potential profits.

The stock market has dropped significantly and will become a good opportunity for long term stock picks as well as short term swing trades. I spend about two hours looking at the stock market and doing my personal research every day. I have been netting a profit of around 20% annual since the year that I started investing in 2002. I hope to make a nice profit by the end of this year and bring up my annual average percentage gains.

The house market has also tanked, and that be a signal to look for cheap real estate bargains. I plan on looking at some real estate this year and try to make a purchase while the mortgage interest rates are still low.

I already own a rental property in Philadelphia. I was happy about it until this year. My tenants have called me many times and reported issues. I have spent a great deal of time coordinating repairs since I live two hours away in NYC.

I have been discussing with people about creating e-commerce businesses. One of the businesses I wanted to do is create an online store for health products, and the other one is to create an online store for electronic products.

This year has been busy so far and certainly will become busier for me. I hope all things will go well and will keep posting status here.

Summary and Status

Full Time Day Job
I am currently working on a project to build a unified time and attendance system for the government. It is a long term project that will last several years and the estimate total cost of the whole project is $500 million.

Stock Market - Short Term Trading / Portfolio Building
I love to trade in the stock market. I have a long term portfolio, but I also like to play with short term trades. I spent my late evenings doing research on individual companies and the stock market and plan what to buy before the day begins.

Rental Property
Up until this year, the rental business has been doing well for me. However, this year, I have spent a lot of time dealing with the tenants and repair workers to maintain the house.

Company website
I am self-employed and have registered a company. I created a website for my consultant business. Currently, the website does not contain any information but the title of the company. I will need to work on the contents of the website and post up more information about the company.

E-commerce store #1 - Health Products
Health products are becoming more popular as people become more health conscious. This growing health trend will allow me to start up a business and grow in the health products market.

I am in the works of creating an e-commerce business that sells health products. I am currently talking to some people that will join me in this business.

E-commerce store #2 - Electronic Products
I want to start an e-commerce business that sells electronic products. I am looking for electronic products that has the potential to do well in this competitive market. I talked to some people that will be looking for these kinds of products, but I have no solid leads on this yet.

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I was cleaning up this weekend and I find a lot of things I no longer need anymore. I was about to throw or give them away but I thought maybe I can make a little experiment out of this. I’ll put up the items on the Internet and see how much I can make out of this trash and see if it’s worth the time and effort to post everything up as opposed to just giving or throwing them away. My instincts and experience tell me that it’s not worth the time and effort to post them up. I have posted items up on the Internet before and it is very time consuming to write up a post and attach pictures.

Here are some of the items that I’ll put up for sale. I used to post items up on eBay but eBay takes up too much time and fees. I have recently signed up for Craigslist and I have found it to be a much faster way to post up items. I like the simple interface and it only takes a few clicks to post up items, much quicker than eBay. And postings on Craigslist are free.

Some items for sale:
NetGear MR814 082.11b Wireless Router (box, almost new) - $20
Airnet 108mbps Wireless USB Pen Adapter (Retailed Box, sealed) - $30
Gigafast Wireless USB Adapter 802.11b-g (Retailed Box, almost new) - $25
Belkin Ethernet NIC (Retailed Box, sealed) x2 - $5 each
Linksys Fast Ethernet NIC (Retail Box, almost new) $5
Fast Etherlink NIC (as is) - $2
Motorola 56K modem (as is) - $2
Monitor Switch Box (as is) - $2
Battery Charger & Meter Tester (as is) - $5

As I hate doing the packing and shipping, I will be requesting for pick-ups. Packing and shipping just takes too much time and will make selling these items a drag. It took me half an hour to take pictures and put up those items on Cragislist. I wish there’s an easier way to post all the items up. I would like the idea of a virtual backyard sale where people can browse virtually to see what they want without me having to individually going through every item. That would be an awesome idea. I’ll put a mental note on the virtual backyard sale idea.

I also have a lot of books that I would like to get rid of. Does anyone what is a fast way to get rid of books - say a yard sale or even a donation place that would take books?
I’ll post updates on this experiment in a week and we’ll see how things go.

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For those who are entrepreneurs, here is a very good article about finding the right business partner. I have talked to many business owners before and I agree with what the author wrote in the article.
Finding the Right Business Partner

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I received a check this weekend from Adsense. The check is for $110. It’s a decent amount, but it’s nothing compared to what this guy earned in the picture. How does he get to six figures?

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Who are you?
I am an ambitious guy who is passionate about making money. My aspiration in life is to succeed in the business world. I want get out of the rat race and become financially independent. I am on my way to accumulating a huge amount of wealth.

What is your background?
I am in my mid-twenties. I live and grew up in New York City. I attended all my schools here. I have a bachelor’s in Computer Science. I used to think that computer positions would make me good money, but now I know where the money is. I study the stock market during my own time and I love learning about investing. Computers have become more of a hobby to me now; business is where my life is.

What do you do for a living?
I am currently a Business and Systems Analyst for a huge government project in New York City. I used to do database and reporting work, but I have shifted my focus towards the business end. My next position would have more involvement with business.

Why did you start this blog?
Initially, I wanted to keep track of my student loans. I started out with 30K in student loans and I established a plan to pay them off. I gave myself a deadline and a roadmap to achieve the goal. I was able to meet my goal and cleared out my student loans in November 2006.

Then I started to write more about investing and investment ideas. I turned it into a money blog with a strong emphasis in investing, because I believe investing is a key to growing wealth.

How did you come up with the blog name, Growing Money?
A smart farmer would grow two apple trees. He would eat off one tree and sell the fruits on the second tree. Then he would take the seeds and grow more trees. Eventually, he would have a forest of money-making trees. He was growing money.

Base on the same idea, I would use my seeds to grow more money. They say making the first million dollars is the hardest. Because once you have the first million, the rest of the millions will just flow in.

Has starting this finance blog helped you in any way?
I’m not sure if it has helped me directly, but I can see myself grow. In the first year of my financial blog, I was trying to get out of debt. During my second year, I talked a bit about stocks, but I had little money. A year later, I bought a single-family rental property and covered real estate topics for a while. Now, I have a strong focus on stocks and businesses. And I can see myself shifting more to business topics as I gain more wealth. I think this may be the path to my financial success.

What are your goals?
I strive to build a successful global business that covers USA, China, India, Russia, and Brazil.

My ultimate goal is to have a huge, growing passive income and live in a lavish lifestyle without working. Ideally, I would be collecting rent from my real estate properties and payouts from a portfolio of high-yielding dividend stocks.

How much do you want to make in your goals?
I’m building a financial empire here. I’m going for One Billion.

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Last Sunday, I went to NY’s Aqueduct Flea Market, the largest outdoor flea market on the East Coast. The flea market area is indeed huge. There are many stores and they sell items ranging from little 99 cent gadgets to sunglasses to clothing to food to luggage bags — almost anything. From what I’ve seen on that day, it looks like a doable business. It would be worth a shot if you can get a lot of items for really cheap. The rent is about $50 for a table.

I know someone there renting two big lots, about $175 each. He sells clothing and fake jewelry and is making over $2000 a day. I walked around the flea market and I see a store selling one-dollar and plus items. While I was there, one guy bought $20 of stuff. Those small items add up!

I’m thinking maybe I can rent the smallest area for about $50 a day and sell iced cold water bottles. I’d charge $2.00 for a half liter bottle. (It was really hot when I was there yesterday. Summer is usually hot, so good for selling water.) I’d need 25 customers to break even for the rent. Let’s play the number game, assuming I will sell 100 bottles a day. Here are the estimates:

Net Profit: $77
After the one time water cooler expense, it’ll be a recurring $117 net profit.

I think once I get the equipment and things set, I can pick up a nice profit. I can also sell soft drinks.

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I called my friend on Friday to wish her a happy birthday and I thought… I wish there’s a way I can play the Happy Birthday song over the phone. Maybe there should be a service where people can select a song and play it over someone’s voicemail. For instance, I could just call a company, select a song, and record my personal message. “Hey, I want to wish you a happy birthday. [Music beings and the song plays].”
This idea can expand to beyond just a birthday song — to any song. You can pick a song for a girlfriend, a wife, a best friend, or a niece for graduation.

How does it work?
You call a company that hosts the service, SEND-A-TUNE (for example). You pick a song from the selection. The selection should include a wide range of music, genre, and artists. You enter the destination voicemail number. You are allowed to record a personal message before and after the song. You make a payment. The payment can be done with a credit card or you can open a membership account that speeds up the process. The song and message gets delivered to the target.

Why send a song?
Sometimes a song can express your feelings and thoughts. Send a song to confess your love. Send an apology. Send a congratulation message. There are many reasons.

• Example #1: John had feelings for Rebecca but never had the courage to tell her. He sends the song, “Nobody Knows.”

• Example #2: Maggie appreciates the five years she’s been with her boyfriend. On her anniversary, she picks “Thank God I Found You” and sends that to him.

• Example #3: Jimmy just graduated high school. He picks “That’s What Friends Are For” and sends them to two of his best friends.

Who would pay for this service?
Mostly teens and young adults, but people of any age can be a customer. I imagine mostly lovebirds and people who like music. But parents can send songs to kids to express their love and care. That gives parents another way to tighten the gap with their kids.

How much would it cost for users?
The service has to be inexpensive for people to use it. One-time payment and memberships are available as well.

Great expansion idea for existing music stations.
I think this would be a great opportunity for existing music stations like Yahoo! Music to implement. They already have all the licensing and it would be a great thing to add to their services.

Added 10/8/2005:
Easy Payment
One easy way for customers to pay is to have it charged to their phone bill. The music company can talk to the phone company about this. If the customer doesn’t like adding to their phone bill, they can sign up for a charge-card where they enter their account # and a pin#.

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I’m going to explore AdSense as well. I’ll have to place the ads more strategically on the site to maximize the number of views and clicks. If this is not making me more than five cents a week but instead this is hurting people’s eyes, then I’ll revert back to a less ad-intrusive blog.

I spent some time playing around with the ads and placement. It doesn’t seem like AdSense allows you to place more than 3 ads in one page. Of all the places, I like the one on the top the most. I also picked a more green color to match the blog layout. I hope more people can see the ads now and it will make more money for me.

MMI #7 completed.

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To take on Neville’s challenge, I’ve decided to take action on Money-Making Idea # 5: “Ebay Your Junk.” I am going through all the items in my apartment and look for items to dump or sell. This project will serve two purposes. First, I clean up my place and clear up some space. And second, I may make some cash. As a bonus, I will a prize from Nev.

I started cleaning up some drawers and picking some items out. I posted the items I don’t need anymore for sale on ebay.

Item #1: Kingston Memory Expansion Kit (KTH-LJ4000E/16)

I have 3 of these. It’s hard to sell.

Item #2: Sonicare Elite 7500 Power Toothbrush

This item got a bid shortly after I posted.

Item #3: Motorola V60i Cell Phone

I should have sold this phone long time ago for good money. It was sitting on my desk for almost two years. Like any tech device, a cell phone goes out of flavor really quickly. The money I can get back on this one is very little now.

Item #4: Laser Pointer

I have two of these. If anyone is interested, let me know.

Item #5: irock! 860 MP3 Player (256 MB)

Very nice MP3 player. I got the iPod Shuffle now, so I no longer use this.

As an experiment, I also posted up some coupons. I have seen a lot of people selling coupons on the web. I don’t think it’s worth my time for the money, but I did it anyway to check it out.
Coupon #1: Office Depot $15 off (This one is sold for $3.25)

Coupon #2: UNO, Borders, and Blockbuster

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When I was in college, I was hooked on hot deal websites and I blew a lot of money on it. Sometimes I would have to buy multiple items to use a dollar off couple. Then I would end up with stuff I don’t need. Eventually, I figure out I could sell some of the stuff I bought for a small profit. The biggest profit margins I get are the free-after-rebate products. Say, I picked up a $40 software and send in a $40 rebate, I would end up getting the product for free. Then I would sell it on a forum or ebay for like $5 or $10. The profit margin was off course huge, like infinity!!, but the actually profits and time spent was not alway so worth it.

If you look carefully on the hot deals, sometimes you can get pretty good deals on products that has a lot of demand. One product that I used to buy often was routers. Sometimes they have rebates for them, making the price really hot. I could get a $50 router for $20 after rebate and sell it on a forum or ebay for $40.

I did follow this money-making idea for a while during college, so it has been proven. I wasn’t so aggressive and I was picky so I didn’t earn too much. I only picked products that I would keep if they doesn’t sell and I would only sell one or two items at a time. The risk for me was relatively safe as I spent on average of $20 or less per product and I sold them out pretty quickly. I made about $1000 in a year’s time. Afterwards, I got tired of packaging items and going to the post office. Actually, I was okay with packaging items, but I hated to go to the post office because it was so out of my way.

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