Nerdy Dork

I’m very mediocre at online marketing. I know all the theory and things I should be doing to make money online, but I haven’t hit the big time by any means. I think a big part of the problem is that I’m not very motivated by making money. For for some weird reason, I’m very motivated to save money!

This is where the knowledge and skills I’ve developed in internet marketing begin to be entertaining and profitable. I have two example to share. One I’ll share now, the other I’ll share after May (you’ll understand why when I share it then)

Example the first:

I love Rocketman! It’s one of my all time favorite movies. It’s just plain clean stupid humor. I wanted a copy of it so bad on DVD. At first it was only available as a region 2. I couldn’t take a chance of it not working. LaterI found that it was released in region 1. I saw a few copies on Amazon, but they were selling for over $50 per copy. I did some searching and found that the only way to order them was by joining the Disney DVD club. I didn’t want to join the club for one movie. I did some calculation, and though I can’t remember the exact numbers (this was two years ago) I figured if I joined the club and bought filled my requirements by buying all Rocketman movies, I could get approx 9 copies for $118.00 ($13.10 each) and then quit. So, if I kept one and sold the rest to break even, I would just need to sell them for $14.75 each. Since they were selling on Amazon for $50 I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.

My wife was quite surprised when she saw 9 copies of Rocketman show up in the mail. Ok, by now she’s probably not surprised by the weird things I do, but rather curious. I kept one copy for my personal collection and sold the other 8 on Amazon for an average of $40 each after shipping. So, to do the math, I got my movie and made $202.00 in the process!

I told a friend about it and he was elated because his wife had joined the Disney DVD club and they still had 3 movies to buy before they could fulfill their commitment. He bought 3 copies of Rocketman and sold them promptly.

So why not wash, rinse, repeat? I told you, I’m lazy. I hated going to the post office and shipping movies. Besides, I’m sure they have some kind of rules about household quitting and rejoining. I did tell everyone what I did and said they could do the same to make a quit buck, but I think they were all too skeptical and no one took me up on it.

Don’t bother now, because you can buy them new on Amazon for under $10.

Look for the follow up to this post in a couple of months.

UPDATE:

I wrote the follow up post, but just before publishing it I changed my mind. As much as I would love to share what I did (I basically got a $1000+ value from $6 worth of advertising and 1-2 hours of time). I thought it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity, but from what I’ve learned, the opportunity may present itself next year! So, I guess I’d be better off keeping this one to myself for now.
Continue reading “Skills for Deals”

About 2 years ago a friend told me about Dave Ramsey. At the time I was struggling to figure out a way to do better with finances. I had visited financial advisers and been given bad advice. I was really quite frustrated. After listening to Dave Ramsey things started making sense and budgeting didn’t sound so scary. For those of you not familiar with Dave, he recommends a zero based budget system and especially recommends using cash and envelopes to budget for items such as groceries, clothing, entertainment, etc.

We gave it a try for a few months, but it just didn’t seem to work for us. We were just too used to the conveniences of debit cards. I tried programs like Quicken and Microsoft Money, which were great for tracking your money AFTER you spent it, but their budget systems didn’t work for us. They seemed to be based on averages and the perfect month in a perfect world. They just were not flexible from month to month. I went online looking for a virtual envelope budget system of sorts (I was ready to write my own if I couldn’t find one). That is when I found Mvelopes.

I gave the free trial a go and liked what I saw. Initially it was buggy and slow, but since it has been rewritten in Flash the performance has been much more reliable.

Before Mvelopes, we used to dip into overdraft EVERY month. It was just a way of life. Now I really don’t monitor what my bank balance is because it really doesn’t matter. Every dollar has a name and it in in virtual envelope in the Mvelopes system. Now we put money aside each month for Christmas and for those yearly expenses such as life insurance and gym memberships. I’m enjoying saving money by paying these things yearly because I know I can do it now, I don’t need to pay the extra fees to be on a monthly plan. In the past two years we have reduced our debt by $20,000 and I believe by the end of 2008 we will be debt free except for our house.

Budgeting with my wife has gotten much easier. I’m the nerd in the family so I fund the envelopes, print out a report, then we take 10-15 minutes to review it together. She can tell me what adjustments to make (if we need more money for close or a birthday or something) and I and adjust envelope amounts. So, not only has the application helped our finances, it has helped our marriage.

I highly recommend Mvelopes to all my friends. I tell them to give the 30 day demo a try and and you’ll find the subscription cost is totally worth the value you get.

UPDATE: Since writing this post, Amazon has increased their price to $169.99, but the coupon below still works so you can get it shipped for $149.99.

So I have a small business. After meeting with my accountant last night I determined I really could make my life easier by using Quickbooks. I’ve tried the free version and it’s crap. So I figured I’d bite the bullet and shell out $200 for the pro version. Yeah, my business is growing, I guess it makes sense.

But being the budget conscious guy that I am, I figured I’d search the net for a better deal. I was nearly ready to head over to Costco to buy it for $150 plus tax, but after some further research I found a way to get it for $129.99 - no tax, no shipping. Better yet, it’s from Amazon so you know its the real deal.

It’s simple really. Amazon has it listed for $149.99. After adding it to your cart, and before you checkout, add coupon code UPINR5SC

Click Here To Order QuickBooks Pro 2008

Caution: Don’t delay if want this deal. The coupon expires Feb 15th.

Note: It works. I’ve done it. See screen shots below.

   

Before anything else, let me give you a little background as to how I first learned about this book and why I read it.

I have a brother in law that recommended the book a few years ago. He had two copies, one was autographed by the other, the other, was well read, which is the one he loaned to me. I took it home and read the introduction. I had some interest but I couldn’t help but think that Robert Kiyosaki was lying the whole time. I did some research on the internet and found John T. Reed’s analysis of the book which in my mind confirmed my suspicions about the author. So after only reading the first chapter I gave the book back and said I wasn’t interested in reading any further.

If you have read any of my previous posts, you know I’m a big Dave Ramsey fan. I was surprised to heard Dave often recommending this book to everyone on the radio, even though he is often disagreeing with Kiyosaki on other financial matters.

In the meantime my brother-in-law’s business has started turning a profit and another friend of mine that also recommended the book has continued to build his business. So I thought, what the heck, I’ll get the audio book from the library and listen in my spare time.

I have to admit there were many times in the book that I still thought his stories were a bunch of bunk and I still find John T. Reed’s site more accurate. Kiyosaki tells very detailed stories about when he was nine years old.

But on the other hand, I did appreciate a new way of looking at a few things. His definition of an asset is an interesting one and made me reevaluate what I would consider an asset.

All in all, I don’t think I’ll read anything else from Kiyosaki, nor will I ever claim to be a Kiyosaki fan, but I am glad that I read the book. It gave me a new perspective on certain ideas. This book alone will not make anyone rich because I don’t think it has any real usable advice, but the value comes in how you look at life and business. It will make you think and that is always a good thing.

I’ve never had a “payday loan.” Therefore, I’m not an expert in how they work. But being an avid Dave Ramsey fan, I feel they are the biggest rip-offs on the planet.

Do you ever see wealthy people getting Payday Cash Advance Loans? Oh, but they don’t need them, they are wealthy! Well how do you think they got wealthy? Wealth certainly didn’t come by taking out more and more rip-off loans.

As Dave always says, “Do poor people things and you stay poor, do rich people things and you get rich.”

So, repeat after me… “I will never walk into a cash advance or payday loan building!”
Continue reading “Payday Loans = Debt Trap!”