If you already have money, there are many ways to make more. You don't have to use hard-to-understand businesses or boring methods like bank CDs. And you don't even have to spend money. For example, if you have credit cards, you can get cash advances and use the cash to make money. These are ways to make money that aren't quite a business because you can do them just once or whenever you want.
Invest in other people's knowledge.
Because I don't know anything about cars, my friend John had to show me several car magazines before I could understand why a $2,300 old fibreglass car was a good deal. When he finally got me to give him the money, the car needed a $900 transmission. We made about $1,000 because he sold the Corvette for $4,300. For putting up the money for two weeks, I took $500, which was half of the profit.
I used to do this a lot, and I only lost about $50 on a car once. I didn't know anything about cars, so I did it with friends who did know about cars but didn't have any money. Also, if I had used a credit card to get the money and paid 18% interest and a $50 cash advance fee, my profit would still have been over $400, and John would have done all the work. I like to mess around with money. Do you know anyone who knows everything there is to know about boats?
You can both buy and sell mobile homes.
Almost everything is cheaper if you pay cash, including mobile homes. If you make it easy for someone to buy a home, you will get the highest price because you are making it possible for them to do so. Mobile homes are bought and sold by more than one investor.
I read about an investor's recent business deal. He spent $4,000 on a cell phone. The seller wanted $6,500, but he or she was sick of waiting and tired of paying rent on the lot. The investor fixed it up and sold it for $10,000, with a $1,000 down payment, quarterly payments of $250, and 10% interest on the remaining balance. Did the buyer pay too much? It's hard to say, since he could have rented instead and had nothing to show for it after a few years instead of having a home with some value.
Be a shady lender.
People sometimes have short-term needs for money. For example, I gave a friend of mine $300 to buy drywall stilts, which helped him get a good-paying construction job. Many years ago, I did this a lot, and I never charged less than $5 per week as a loan fee (don't call it interest). I made an extra $1,000 or $2,000 by doing this some years. If you have doubts, look up the laws in your area and put everything in writing. Also, take collateral if you want to be completely safe.
You can buy and sell land.
We recently met a couple who buys out estates. They sell some things at flea markets and auction off the rest. They've been making a living this way for a long time. After making a deal to buy a whole house full of things, they load up a trailer. Then, if they don't want to do a flea market, they just put everything up for auction on Sunday afternoon and make a good profit.
If you can tell how much something is worth and you go to auctions often, you could do the same thing at rummage sales. Just offer $100 for everything and then sell each piece separately at auction. Anyone can sell things at the auction near us, and there is no charge to get in. They just take a commission of 25%.
Using the casino's money to play games
I worked at a casino for years and saw a lot of stupid people write down the numbers that came up on the roulette wheel. I say they were stupid because their ideas didn't make sense. These people will always be welcome at casinos, and they will even be given a pen and paper.
One player, on the other hand, took it very seriously. After "charting" the wheel for 5,000 spins, he found a bias and made a lot of money by betting on just one or two numbers. When a number comes up, it pays 35 to 1, but one of the numbers was coming up once every 27 spins instead of the usual once every 38 spins because of a flaw in the way it was made.
So all he had to do was bet $10 per spin, and in the long run he made $80 for every 27 spins. It works out to about $100 per hour. But the ups and downs are very big, so this is not for people who are easily scared. In this case, I saw him lose as much as $700 in one night. Not every wheel has a bias, either (they eventually replaced that wheel). So, when you play blackjack, have you ever tried "card counting"? You can make money in a lot of different ways.
