“Money trees is the perfect place for shade and that’s just how I feel”

– Kendrick Lamar, Money Trees

At the start of the month I had thirteen dollars in my savings account, a speeding ticket, and a gym membership that needed renewal. Between diligent spending, hard work, and a little bit of luck; I met all my expenditures and still have money left over. Since I don’t have a traditional job, I made my money by doing the following:

• Planting over 600 Christmas trees in one afternoon.
• Troubleshooting several local websites.
• Affiliate marketing.
• Scrapping metal.
• Manuel labor.
• Writing documents for others.
• And a bunch of other menial tasks that are too trivial to mention.

Over the last thirty days, I’ve also seen great progress in my secondary challenge of improving my Spanish skills. In one month I learned more Spanish than I did during my entire high school career, all because I put in a conscious effort to study the language for an hour every day. While I’m, obviously, still not at the level of proficiency that I want, I have gotten a lot better with conjugation and grammatical tense.

My only regret this month was that I was so busy making actual money that I didn’t have time to write as much about business as I had hoped. Fortunately I plan on blogging for a long time, so there’s a good chance that you’ll see some more posts about making money.

While this challenge wasn’t as pleasant as some of the others, it was essential to my personal growth. I learned a lot about finance, and developed a greater work ethic. I also experienced several small personal victories that will lead to much greater things within the near future…

“I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice.”

– Alan Iverson

Contrary to what Tim Ferriss or some dude selling a five minute ab program might preach, there are no shortcuts to success. If you want something, you’re going to have to put in the work required to achieve it. Anything that’s only worth five minutes of your time isn’t something you truly desire.

Fortunately, working towards a goal takes very little actual time. I spend 90 minutes a day practicing my Spanish, the exact same length as the standard action movie. Working out only takes about an hour or so every day, the same amount of time that it takes to sit through most television programs.

By the end of the year, I should have completed roughly 365 hours of lifting, programing, learning Spanish, reading, and writing. Assuming I don’t get hit by a car, I should live at least another 50 years. If I continue to pursue by interests, I’ll have over 18,000 hours worth of expertise by the time I die.

Although you’re going to live a long time, your death will be permanent. Once you’re gone there is no ‘reset’ button. It’s over. Find a purpose, set a goal, and make use of what time you still have.

“Never underestimate a small amount of money gathered by hand for 60 years.”

– Joe Ades

When he wasn’t sipping champagne at the Pierre Hotel or enjoying his three bedroom apartment on Park Avenue, Joe Ades was selling five dollar potato peelers at the Union Street Greenmarket.

Unlike the majority of sales pitches, Joe’s is actually delivered with conviction. There’s none of that overly enthusiastic “late night infomercial” feel to the delivery. There’s also a lot of charisma mixed into the demonstration, something that I notice is lacking in most of the business presentations that I’ve personally seen.

Joe Ades is the perfect example of a master salesman. After watching this video I even wanted to buy a peeler, and I don’t eat potatoes.

“I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.”

– Steve Martin

Because of my obsessive need to click every link on every website and forum that I read, I often stumble on some pretty weird stuff. Case in point, yesterday I discovered an entire subreddit dedicated to women auctioning off their used panties (for the sake of the children, I’m not going to provide a link.). Recognizing genius entrepreneurship when I see it, I’ve decided to compare and contrast the used panty industry with more conventional forms of enterprise.

Supply and Demand

To quote Wikipedia, supply and demand is:

“An economic model of price determination in a market. It concludes that in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded by consumers (at current price) will equal the quantity supplied by producers (at current price), resulting in an economic equilibrium for price and quantity.”

As time progresses certain products are rendered obsolete and their demand becomes nonexistent. In 1986 the price of a VCR was almost $300. Today that same device couldn’t be given away. In contrast, I believe that the used panty industry will remain a lucrative revenue stream until the world’s population of internet dwelling weirdos evaporates. An event that seems highly unlikely.

Investment

It’s expensive to extract oil. You have to conduct geological surveys, hire engineers, build pricey drills, set up derricks, and staff your site with trained professionals.

It is not expensive to buy lingerie, take a picture in it, and post it on a website.

When it comes to start-up costs, I think we both know who wins.

Conclusion

Stumbling on bizarre nonsense, like the aforementioned used panty trade, always re-confirms my belief that you can make money off anything. If there’s one lesson to take away from this, it’s that you don’t need to do something revolutionary to be an entrepreneur. Whether it’s running a series of websites, creating books, writing code, or selling worn underwear to strangers with bizarre fetishes; most people with side hustles are doing unglamorous work.