How To Make A Dollar

THE LAST EMPEROR

2012-01-17T08:52:00.001-05:00

Authored by Leandro Delgado

I logged onto http://www.Direct.TV/ and upgraded our television package. I was flipping through the channels and came across a movie that caught my eye. It had just started, so I started watching it. It was called “the Last Emperor”. It won an Oscar when it came out in the nineties. After watching it, I know why it won an Oscar. It was won of my top ten favorite movies. The movie is based on the story of China’s last dragon emperor who was born at the turn of the last century. He ended up being a dummy emperor. There were a lot of changes going on in China at the time when he took throne as a child at the age of three. By the time that he reached sixteen, he realized that he was confined to the Forbidden City and was not the actual ruler of China, China had become a Republic. It chronicles the emperor’s life from a young child to an old man. As a young man, he is driven from the Forbidden City. He makes some bad decisions and gets involved with the Japanese, which ultimately leads to a decade long prison sentence. He gets out when he is an old man. It is a great movie.

Just How Much Is 15 Trillion?

2011-11-22T10:29:00.001-05:00

Check out this amazing article!!! Click on the link: Just How Much Is 15 Trillion?

Georgia Football

2011-10-28T12:17:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the article from Isaiah Gaines

I have been watching college football for as long as I can remember. More specifically, I have been watching Georgia Bulldog football for as long as I can remember. If there was a game on any Saturday in the Fall, we were watching it. Now that I’m an alumna of The University of Georgia, I’m an even bigger fan. I used to go to every game in Athens, but I’m a little older now and that’s not as realistic as it used to be. I have the best intentions every season, that I’ll make it to every game, but responsibilities start piling up and before I know it, it’s fifteen minutes before kickoff and I’ve completely forgotten about the game. The great thing is, though, that with tvbydirect, I can watch pretty much any game from the comfort of my own home. Most of the games are televised, and I can order the ones that aren’t. It’s normally a pretty nominal fee, especially considering the fact that if I weren’t able to order them I would be forced to go spend more money at a bar that is televising the game. I used to be really disappointed that I couldn’t go to Athens for every game, but I am getting more and more used to relaxing on my couch watching my beloved Bulldogs.

Believe it or not, Blogsvertise keeps paying us money

2011-09-06T21:24:00.000-04:00

Since being blacklisted from google's adsense program, we have been making money using Blogsvertise. "Is blogsvertise a scam?" you may be asking yourself. We are here to tell you that Blogsvertise is not a scam. Blogsvertise is one of our top income revenue streams. And it appears to be our most consistent revenue stream to date. We got paid $15 to post this blog: http://www.howtomakeadollar.com/2011/07/canadapost-laptops.html

Here's the proof.

Good luck making money with blogsvertise! (FYI, blogsvertise sends you money under the name Lang Tech Corp)

Getting creative with dorm room dining

2011-08-24T15:56:00.000-04:00

Guest post written by Lauren Guthrie

Now that I'm a college sophomore, I know the ropes of dorm room living. I opted to not get a meal plan this year though because I'm going to do a fun little experiment with dorm room dining. I cooked a little bit in my dorm last year, but I never really planned ahead for it. I think that it would be a whole lot easier if I planned ahead and knew some really easy recipes.

Before classes start, I'm doing my share of research to figure out how to fix some really easy meals from the comfort of my dorm room. While I was doing that, I ran across the website www.Clearwirelessinternet.net and sent it over to my mom, who's been shopping around for a new internet service provider.

I've already found some great ideas for dorm room dining, including some creative sandwich ideas. More than just peanut butter and jelly. I think those simple recipes are really what I'm going to use the most rather than the ones that will involve venturing out to the hall kitchen.

Canadapost laptops

2011-07-28T22:15:00.000-04:00

I came across a good website for anyone who is looking to compare laptops. Especially if you are looking for a HP laptop check out the link. I recently switched to a laptop computer and it is great. You can take the laptop anywhere and they are really light weight.

The website is a great place to compare different brands of computer including HP, acer, dell, toshiba, etc. The laptops can also be compared using their very convenient and helpful price filter that has a minimum and maximum price feature.

Check it out.

Must have at least 3 friends to make money

2011-06-22T23:08:00.000-04:00

For all of the loyal howtomakeadollar readers out there, I want to first apologize for the agony you have been experiencing over the past six months waiting for a new blog entry! I'm sorry for the long wait. Howtomakeadollar has learned a valuable lesson over the past 6 months.

Previously we blogged about how to have a successful blog by having friends. Unfortunately, we did not specify how many friends you need. We have recently learned that you need at least 3 friends.

3 friends = maximum money making potential

Howtomakeadollar is one friend short of what is needed for wild-world-wide success. One of our friends went missing and the other one has decided to vicariously run for president of the united states in 2012. Needless to say these two friends are unavailable to blog, thus the lack of blogging for the past 6 months. We are one friend short of keeping things going.

In the meantime, we will try and make 3 new friends to help us be successful.

Make Money by Suing McDonald's

2011-01-21T22:46:00.000-05:00

It seems that McDonald's has a history of being sued by its customers. McDonald's has been sued for making their coffee too hot, making kids want their happy meal toys too much, and for making people fat. It seems like everyone is suing McDonald's. It must be the cool thing to do.

Since howtomakeadollar is in negotiations to be sponsored by McDonald's... we don't want to see McDonald's loose any lawsuits. But most likely we will get more money from winning a lawsuit against McDonald's than being sponsored by them.

As regular McDonald's patrons, we have noticed a disturbing trend at McDonald's. McDonalds is trying to stay up on the competition (as if there is any... nothing can come close to McDonald's) by offering ice coffee drinks and smoothies. Many people seem to be enjoying these iced coffee drinks and smoothies. How do we know? Because it is SO RIDICULOUSLY LOUD!

Seriously, the noise from the huge blender that grinds these drinks into a nice liquid form is unbelievable.

So here's the plan...

1) Get a job at McDonald's

2) Volunteer to work at the smoothy/ ice coffee bar

3) After one week of work SUE MCDONALD'S for your loss of hearing

4) Collect a lot of money

5) Eat McDonald's food, get fat, spill coffee and sue them several more times

6) optional step: while working at McDonald's during the Monopoly campaign take off all of the stickers until you get something good.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T23:48:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas to everyone! We hope that you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Christmas cards from shutterfly

2010-12-15T22:24:00.000-05:00

Christmas is almost here! It is now less than two weeks away. Where has the year gone? Well, now that it is Christmas time... it is time to send out Christmas cards. Everyone loves Christmas cards! Especially all of your relatives you only get to see once or twice a year. Most people hang them on the refrigerator or display them on the wall. This is quite a lot of pressure... because you and your family will be up against all of the other picture perfect families. If you don't have a picture perfect family, its okay.
Example of perfect family:

You can make up for it with a beautiful Christmas card! Where can you get a beautiful Christmas card? SHUTTERFLY!

I have used Shutterfly in the past and they have been fabulous. There are a wide variety of cards you can choose from.

This is super easy. All you need is a picture and a computer. Choose the one you want, upload your picture and your good to go. The shipping is fast and the cards look great!

Check it out!!!!! Thank you shutterfly for making such a great product.

Along with Christmas cards they also have birth announcements (it helps if you have a baby), calendars (it helps if the world has not ended), and oh so much more!

Merry Christmas from howtomakeadollar!!!!!

FREE Christmas cards from Shutterfly!

2010-12-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

Celebrate Christmas? Send Christmas cards? How about saving some money by getting FREE christmas cards!

With Shutterfly you can sign up and blog about Shutterfly's Christmas cards and they will give you 50 FREE! Thats worth about $60. Not too bad.

But you have to sign up by December 15th... so don't wait!

Blogsvertise keeps paying us money

2010-12-09T22:35:00.000-05:00

Howtomakeadollar has been trying to make money not only from our business ideas... but also from our blog. We haven't really been to successful since we lost $107 because of our "invalid" clicks through our google adsense account. But, we have found some success with blogsvertise.

We have been signed up with blogsvertise now for a couple of months. We seem to only get an assignment every three months or so. Not very often. But, blogsvertise is the only company that has actually paid us for blogging! And for some reason they paid us again. We have not had an assignment for a long time... but for some reason, WE GOT PAID!

Granted... it was not a lot of money, but it was money non the less. THANKS BLOGSVERTISE!

Another stolen idea

2010-12-03T21:20:00.000-05:00

So it looks like howtomakeadollar is full of good ideas. One of our ideas... which we actually didn't blog about because we were working out the details of our idea... was to start a website called "whatwillyoudoforadollar." Kind of a long name and not very catchy... but the idea behind the website would be to have people post things they are willing to do for $1 and/or post things they are willing to pay people to do for $1.

Well... it looks like this idea has been stolen from us! Somehow, even though we never blogged about it, someone found out about our idea and made it better. Sort of the like the pot head guy and the jesus toaster. The better/cooler/very well executed website that stole our idea is FIVERR.COM

They one-uped us by charging $4 instead of $1... and they actually created a cool website... we did not.

Give Your Dog a More Fashionable Butt

2010-11-14T20:07:00.000-05:00

Howtomakeadollar has frequently discussed money making opportunities related to pets. There are a lot of them. There's the lame, end of the world stolen idea, the related, but not quite the same, MASSIVE SUPERNOVA DESTRUCTION Idea, the Psychic Octopus Idea (Idea over. Octopus dead, Calimari eaten.), and the Flying Animal SuperVacation Idea.

Well, here is another one: http://www.reargearstore.com/

Yep, its a store that sells butt covers for cats and dogs. I'm sorry. Its not butt covers. Its "rear gear." Sometimes you get an idea and you just know its pure gold from the start. This one appears to be brown gold.

Can Someone Please Help Me Find Where My Missile Landed?

2010-11-10T06:41:00.001-05:00

Ok, you've probably heard about this by now. A "large" missile was recently launched just outside of Los Angeles California, and was seen streaking across the sky at sunset by millions of people. However, the U.S. Military has stated that they don't know anything about it, and it wasn't them. Nobody seems to know where it landed, or exactly where it was launched.

This is the type of thing that the military is usually secretive about, and usually winds up saying it was a weather balloon. However, this time they are openly seeking out where it came from, and nobody has breached the "weather balloon" excuse. Probably because it was a missile and everybody knows it.

Howtomakeadollar has already pointed out that our missiles are in danger, and need to be protected and watched carefully by intelligent and capable individuals.

If you are interested in making money off this, just go locate where the missile landed, and sell it the military. I have a hunch they are interested in recovering it, wherever it came from.

How to save $9 on Chipotle burritos on Halloween

2010-10-31T23:04:00.000-04:00

Every Halloween Chipotle does a promotion to get people to come and eat their yummy food. Last year, all you had to do was dress like a burrito (i.e. have at least one square inch of tin foil on you) and you got a free burrito! This year the theme was anti-processed food. Howtomakeadollar is not anti-processed food... in fact we support and love processed food! Without processed food we would all most likely be either dead by now or 50 pounds lighter.

Instead of free burritos, Chipotle was selling $2 burritos. Thats an average savings of $4.50 per burrito. Not too bad! Howtomakeadollar dressed up like processed food and went to Chipotle. Some people didn't seem to get the memo that the theme had changed this year from dressing up like a burrito to being anti-processed food. Chipotle didn't care though. They were giving $2 burritos to everyone.

Howtomakeadollar as I mentioned supports processed foods and by dressing up like one of our favorite processed food... we were able to advertise for one of our favorite restaurants while getting a $2 burrito. Our dressing up consisted of taping trash to a piece of paper and pinning it to our shirt. By the way, the McRib consumed for the purpose of making this costume was phenomenal!

So next halloween, be sure to stop by Chipotle with some trash pinned to your shirt or a small piece of tinfoil and you will surely get a discounted burrito!

All good things must come to an end

2010-10-28T21:49:00.001-04:00

A while back howtomakeadollar blogged about an amazing octopus that predicted who would win the world cup. I am sorry to tell you, that Paul the Octopus is dead.

So, Paul the Octopus is no longer a viable option to make money. Although, I have heard Michael Jackson is making a lot more money now that he's dead than he did when we was alive. So... who knows, maybe Paul the Octopus is still a good money maker.

RIP Paul the Octopus

How to Cash in Your Nickel Collection

2010-10-15T04:49:00.005-04:00

To make sense of this blog, you need to read the previous blogs we've written about nickels. First, we predicted nickel prices would go up, and they did. Second, we clued you in to it and told you to get to work on your nickel collection.

The obvious question at this point is how to cash in your nickels. There are several ways.

1. The Illegal Way
It is illegal to melt U.S. coinage. However, in the future, its always possible that this law will be overturned. If metal prices ever go totally through the roof, like 25 cents for the metal in a nickel, then the government will surely overturn this law in order to increase the metal supply and reduce prices. So just keep your nickels until the law is overturned. Or, alternatively, you could just break the law and melt them yourself. I recommend putting them in your car and parking in the sun. That will probably melt them, but I don't really know how to go about cleaning them up later. Thats on you to figure out. The criminal mind will probably find a way.

2. By Exporting Them
Another way to make money off nickels would be to export them to a country that doesn't care about U.S. laws, such as China or Venezuela. If you can find a way to get them to China without paying high shipping costs, this would work.

3. By Waiting for the Inevitable
My guess is the Treasury will eventually start making nickels out of something cheaper such as zinc or aluminum. Look for it in the news, because it will probably happen sometime in the next year or two as inflation keeps increasing. Once the new cheap nickels are in circulation, the price of the originals will go up all the higher as collectors, melters, and weirdos like me start hoarding them all. They will also get bought up by China and other places that will melt them freely. This is your chance to sell them off to people who want them.

4. By Waiting for THE FINANCIAL CRISIS THAT ENDS ALL FINANCIAL CRISES
If inflation gets too far out of control, the Federal Reserve will take the drastic step of hacking off zeros from all our bank accounts. Like I said, its a drastic step. However, if inflation really does go out of control, lopping off zeros is the only widely accepted solution, and its been done many times in the recent past. Brazil hacked off three zeros in 1994 and again in 1998. Zimbabwe lost three zeros in 2006. Israel knocked off 3 zeros in 1985. Turkey lost six zeros in 2004. Like I said, its extremely drastic, but it is the widely accepted way of handling runaway hyperinflation. By "hacking off zeros," I mean dividing the value of paper money by 10, 100, or 1000 times. Inflation would have to increase significantly in order to warrant this kind of trick in the U.S., but in just the past 20 years a gallon of gas has gone from under $1 to around $3, and movie tickets have gone from under $5 to over 10. Don't even get me started on baseball tickets. So you can see that eventually such a step might be conceivable.

If this happens, there would be a mandatory trade-in of all currency. However, in the examples above, only the paper currency is revalued, leaving coinage intact. Its much easier to demonetize your bank account electronically than to visit your house and hunt down your piggy bank. The government just assumes that people don't have more than a few pocketfuls of coins, so they leave you alone. Some freak with a basement full of nickels would get off pretty well in this situation. This has the effect of multiplying the value of coins while dividing the value of paper money. Your $10,000 savings account might only be worth $1,000 or $100, or 10, but your nickel would then be worth 50 cents, or $5 dollars, or $50. It sounds far fetched and drastic, but like I pointed out above, its happened several times in recent history, and there is no fundamental reason why it couldn't happen in the U.S. If such a thing happens, your $1,000 nickel collection would be worth $10,000, $100,000 or $1,000,000. If it gets as bad as Turkey, with six zeros being divided off, your $1,000 nickels would be worth $1,000,000,000. Yep, a billion. If it does happen, you can cash in simply by spending your coins as money like you currently do. The only difference is they would be worth 10 or 100 or 1000 times more. Then you can tell your grandkids about how you used to buy "penny candy" and get a haircut for 10 cents, like your grandparents tell you. Economics works in cycles.

Again, let me say that this is an extremely unlikely scenario. First, inflation would have to go up massively before the Fed would even consider this. Second, the Fed would have to have the backbone to actually lop off everyone's bank accounts. The first step is somewhat conceivable, but the Fed growing a backbone is not.

Nickels Are Now Worth More Than Nickels Are Worth

2010-10-14T05:05:00.005-04:00

A long time ago Howtomakeadollar suggested collecting a bunch of nickels, holding them until their metal value increased, and then selling them as metal. We stated this prediction clearly, and we personally guaranteed that nickel prices would go up, over 5 cents. Well, they did. On October 12, 2010, the metal value of a nickel went up to 6.104 cents, meaning that the nickel in your pocket right now is worth more as metal than as money. And its actually worth quite a bit more. Right now the nickel in your pocket has made you just over 20% in profit, without you doing anything at all, except fishing around your pocket and smiling contentedly to yourself.

Since this awesome website is called How to Make a Dollar, I suggest you go clean out your car, look for an old piggy bank, and check under your sofa cushions. See if you you can collect five dollars worth of nickels (100 nickels). If you can find $5 worth of nickels, you actually have $6 dollars. Thats how you can make a dollar off money you already have, without doing any work or risking anything at all. Kind of cool huh?

Well, a dollar is all well and good, but its not an inspiring amount. Thats why we suggested buying several thousand dollars worth of nickels. Going from five cents to six cents is a 20% gain. A twenty percent gain on $1,000 is $200. Does $200 sound like decent money? Its certainly better than a dollar.

But don't cash out now. Inflation is probably going to be a major theme in the world economy over the next several years. That means that metal prices are going to keep going up. Hold your nickels, collect more of them, and wait until they double up to10 cents in value. If you think that's far fetched, consider that in 2007 nickel prices were up over 7 cents, so its not a big stretch to think they could go higher in the future. A penny from before 1982 is now worth 2.5 cents, meaning it has more than doubled in value. Dimes made before 1965 are now worth $1.68. Nickels are following this trend as well. Right now they are up 20%, but they will eventually double in value at least.

In many ways this was the first "real" idea that we suggested, and we've suggested many other good ideas since then. However, this idea requires very little work on your part, and absolutely zero risk. Nickels are a completely risk-free investment. Worst case scenario, you still have the same number of nickels and the same amount of money. You haven't lost anything.

Its easy to collect nickels. Just go to your bank and exchange $10 cash for $10 in nickels, or $20 for $20, or whatever. Of course, nickels get heavy when you start going up over $10 worth, so remember to bring a backpack or something, and don't try to buy like $100 (2,000 nickels) at a time. Also, the bank tellers will look at you like you are a crazy person, but you can always turn the tables on them and just look back at them like they are the crazy ones. That always gets them.

Stolen Idea Not Very Good Anyway

2010-10-13T06:54:00.001-04:00

A while back Howtomakeadollar rocked the insurance market with extremely low priced supernova insurance for pets. Our policies are still available, and cover the next 5 billion years, so its not too late to buy your policy now.

Well, when you have a great idea, and when the market reacts favorably to it, its inevitable that copycats will come along and try to make a buck off your original idea by tweaking it a little bit. Recently we found out about an insurance company that claims to take care of your pets if you are a Christian, and the rapture happens, and you go to heaven all of a sudden and there is nobody left to take care of your pets. You can read about this company at eternalearthbound.com. To the best of my knowledge it is a real company.

Its real, but its not spectacular. The company claims that in the event of the rapture, an atheist will come along and grab your cat and dog and go take care of them for you, so you can live in eternal peace and joy in heaven without worrying about Muffy and Scruffy back home, while planet Earth rapidly descends into pestilence, war, famine, and death. Policies cost $110 and expire after 10 years.

I'm sure* there are some people who think this is a great deal, and have already ran out and purchased a bunch of policies.

*By "sure" I mean that it is theoretically possible that in some hypothetical situation, under the right circumstances, with enough alcohol, and having recently read the book of Ezekiel, that a person might come under the impression that this is a worthy investment of their $110.

But you need to think about this before you buy it. First, atheists don't believe the rapture is ever going to happen in the first place. So they are collecting your $110 without any plans to actually honor their commitment. Secondly, atheists hate animals. I know, the website says all the atheists are "animal lovers." But thats not true. Really, its not.

The Soviet Union was the most atheistic society that ever existed on a wide scale. So its a good test tube for how atheists actually behave when left to themselves without any transcendent moral guidelines. Most estimates show that at least 30 million people were killed without a trial in the Soviet Union. Even more, up to 100 million, were sent to frozen work camps in Siberia without a trial, where they dug holes in the tundra all day, and filled them in the next day.

How do you think their pets fared during this time? Not too good. Many people believe there were over one million stray, starving dogs roaming Moscow limping and covered in fleas during this time. Atheism is hard on animals, just like it is on people. After all, if there is no God, everything is permitted. Are those the people you want to pay money to take care of your pets?

Now, what about happy, friendly, animal loving atheists in the USA? They don't act like the Soviets do they? Well, no, not now they don't, but right now they are surrounded by a world that doesn't tolerate that kind of behavior. Put them in a society by themselves, and you get the Soviets. And wait until the tribulation starts, and massive epidemics spread around the world, followed by famine and war. Do you think an atheist is going to feel like honoring an old commitment to rescue your pet? -- A commitment he never believed he would have to honor in the first place? Commitments like that are rarely honored during good times. Do you think the atheists are going to make an effort to feed your cat in the midst of a worldwide famine?

Worlds Best Paper Airplane

2010-10-12T08:00:00.001-04:00

Howtomakeadollar has officially invented the world's best paper airplane! It is truly amazing. Howtomakeadollar has spent countless hours optimizing and testing our paper airplane design.

Would you like to be the life of the party and impress all of your friends. Would you like to impress that special someone you are interested in? Making the worlds best paper airplane is the key to impressing all of your friends and family.

Howtomakeadollar is willing to provide you with a step by step tutorial on how to make the worlds best paper airplane. The step by step plan can be yours for the low price of $2. (this airplane is soooo good we are charging double our normal amount... trust us... it's worth it)

Buy plans for the worlds best paper airplane NOW!

Every State Loves Howtomakadollar

2010-10-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

Howtomakeadollar is very pleased to announce that every state in our great United States of America loves our blog! Howtomakeadollar has been visited by someone in every state! Thanks for visiting.

It only took us 9 months... but it finally happened. Montana took the longest, so thanks to everyone from Montana for checking us out!

Blogsvertise is actually paying us money!

2010-10-08T23:49:00.001-04:00

Ever since howtomakeadollar was blacklisted by Google Adsense, we have been trying to come up with a new source of advertising revenue from our blog. With Google Adsense, we "made" $107 in two weeks, but most of these were from "suspected invalid clicks" so therefore did not count. So, we have been paid and will be paid $0.00 from Google Adsense.

Blogsvertise recently paid us to post this blog. Blogsvertise agreed to pay us $1.50 each time the link was clicked on and the reader entered their zip code. Apparently only one person did just that. But, one person equals $1.50. So for about 10 minutes of effort, we were able to get paid $1.50. Not too bad!

A lot of people have been coming to our website from googling "Blogsvertise" or "Blogsvertise scam". If you are one of those people than know this... blogsvertise will pay you. They may only give you about one assignment every two months or so, and then take two months to pay you... but they will pay you... which is more than we can say from our experience with Google Adsense.

Total revenue so far from blogsvertise: $22.10

Please Do Not Implicate Me in Court if Your Stock Trading Scam Gets You Arrested

2010-10-05T19:21:00.001-04:00

A long time ago, Howtomakeadollar suggested making money by tinkering with financial markets and stock exchanges until a financial bubble forms and lots of money comes out.

Today, a guy in France named Jerome Kerviel who followed our advice got slapped with a fine of $6.7 billion. Apparently it is illegal to create a massive framework of fictitious stock trades in order to inflate an artificial financial bubble across the entire European financial market. Who knew? Those silly Euroweenies are always regulating everything right when it starts getting fun.

Kerviel makes approximately $3,150.00 per month as a computer consultant, so according to this yahoo news story, it will take him 177,536 years to pay back his fine. That pretty much means he's never going to pay it, and every cent he earns will be automatically deducted into his fine.

That means he has zero incentive to work, which means he will be collecting welfare for the rest of his life, which means that a computer consultant and financial genius is going to stop working and start collecting welfare, and the European Union is going to have to eat its own fine. Kind of a weird situation. Here's hoping we don't get implicated in any of it.

Would Somebody Please Get These Aliens Out of My Nuclear Missile Silo

2010-09-29T07:01:00.001-04:00

Howtomakeadollar likes to link to stories in the news that are somewhat out of the ordinary and explain how you can make money off them. We've done this frequently. You can read a few of them here and here..

Well, today's story is at least as weird as any others we've encountered. A group of six former U.S. military officers have claimed that aliens from outer space have repeatedly shut down nuclear missiles in the U.S. and Britain. Not only is this a real story, but apparently they have convinced some high ranking people at the National Press Club to let them do a news conference. A good summation of their story is here. Now remember, this is a real news story reported by the National Press Club and the London* Telegraph. Its not the national Enquirer.

*London is a city in Europe somewhere

Anyway, Captain Robert Salas, one of the officers who appeared at the news conference, said that in 1967 he personally witnessed a UFO hovering over the Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana, and ten Minuteman nuclear missiles were simultaneously deactivated. Similar stories have emerged from numerous nuclear missile sites around the U.S. and Britain, the most recent of which occurred in 2003. He believes that aliens have come to prevent us from nuclear disaster.

I'm going to come right out and say right now that it doesn't matter if this is actually true or not. Either way, our nukes are in danger. One one hand, maybe there are a bunch of intergalactic peace hippies floating up in the sky and arbitrarily shutting down our nuclear warheads. On the other hand, maybe the Air Force has hired a bunch of hallucinating LSD experiments gone wrong to guard our nukes. Either way, we are in danger, and we need a good security force to protect our nukes. Security forces get paid decent money, so thats how you can make a dollar off aliens.

And don't think for a moment that these are happy aliens who believe in peace. No way. If they are zapping our nukes its because they hate us and want us dead. Maybe they are planning to invade, and are testing our alertness, maybe they are just hoping we self destruct. In any case, nukes are good. Nukes are extremely good for world peace. Nukes have been the most potent force of peacemaking in world history.

Consider the two World Wars of the 20th century. In WWI, roughly 16 million people died, and another 21 million were wounded. Thats astounding. In WWII, about 25 million soldiers were killed, and about 40 million civilians were killed. Thats even more astounding. If it makes you feel any better, most of them were Nazis and Communists.

Lots of people have tried to add up all the deaths in the 20th century due to war and genocide, and they've reached a wide range of estimates, but generally speaking we can say that at least 100 million people were killed in the 20th century in wars and genocides.

Now, lets add up the total number of people killed by nukes since their invention.
Hiroshima Aug. 6, 1945 66,000 dead, 69,000 wounded.
Nagasaki Aug. 9, 1945 39,000 dead, 25,000 wounded.
So thats a grand total of 105,000 people dead and another 94,000 wounded by nukes compared to 100 million killed without nukes. Also consider that nations with nukes are simply less likely to even go to war in the first place, or be invaded. Since nukes were invented, almost all of the killing has taken place between nations without nukes. Nukes have prevented countless wars, and prevented other wars from escalating.

Now consider that the two largest powers of the 20th century absolutely hated each other. From 1947 to 1991, there was constant tension between the USSR (bad) and U.S. (good). Never before, in all of history, have two nations been as powerful as the U.S. and the USSR and failed to go to war. The reason? Nukes. Both nations knew that if war ever broke out, it would be the end of the world. So war never broke out, and we just had a cold war instead of a hot one. Nukes prevented all out war. How many people would have died if the U.S. and the Soviets had gone to war? How many people died when they did not go to war? 0.

Think about the Cold War some more. During the 1950s and 60s, the USSR advanced through all of eastern Europe, but then stopped halfway across Germany. Why did they stop? Nukes. France, Germany, and Britain all had nukes, and would defend themselves and their neighbors if the Soviets kept advancing. Nukes prevented a communist takeover of all of Europe. How many people would have died?

During the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein launched a few scud missiles wily nily into Israel because he was a murderous freak. Israel told him that if he kept it up, they would nuke Baghdad. He stopped. Again, nukes prevented a war from escalating.

Obviously nukes are capable of enormous destruction, so maybe tomorrow a nuclear war will break out and obliterate the death toll of the last century. But so far nukes have been a tremendous force of peacemaking. They have prevented wars and ended wars, and never started wars. Nations with nukes are merciful* against nations without them, and nations without them are respectful of nations with them.

*So far. I am certain that Iran, if it gets a nuke, will use it almost immediately against Israel or the U.S... Iran is a thoroughly unreasonable nation, run by suicide bombers. Another disaster would be if a nuke gets stolen by suicidal terrorists. People with an interest in their own continued existence will be very careful about nukes, which is why we need to protect the ones we have.

If you a re tough guy, go join the military and offer your services protecting our nukes from the warmongering aliens.

Snagged another $5 from swagbucks

2010-09-25T11:13:00.000-04:00

Several months ago we blogged about making money searching the internet using swagbucks. The first two weeks we used swagbucks we made $5. Not too bad for going to swagbucks instead of google to search the internet.

Our latest $5 took us a little bit longer this time. Like most of our ideas... we started out strong, had our expectations set too high, lost interest, got sad, stopped trying. We didn't totally stop trying, just slowed down on our swagbuck searching. But, after 3 months of searching using swagbucks we got $5 more dollars!

If you are interested in signing up... sign up under us to help us promote pyramid schemes... SIGN UP HERE!. If you are interested in becoming our facebook friend... friend us here!

Good source for inspiration!

2010-09-23T22:08:00.000-04:00

Howtomakeadollar thinks finding inspiration is important. Inspiration is key to finding both meaning and significance in life. Thankfully, there is a website that we have become aware of that provides both meaning and significance! http://meaningandsignificance.blogspot.com/

http://meaningandsignificance.blogspot.com/ is a great blog for finding both meaning and significance in life. It is a well crafted piece of work. The blog will provide you with hours and hours of wonderful reading. Head on over there and check it out!

Looking for a unique way to promote your website or business? Check out our PromoteME! feature.

Be successful: Lower expectations

2010-09-21T21:52:00.000-04:00

Often times in life we become disappointed. Its true, at least once or twice in your life you will be disappointed. Most people will tell you to count your blessings, look on the bright side of things, etc... but you will not get that advice from us. The key to avoiding disappointment in life is to lower your expectations. This advice is good for life as well as being successful at business.

If you are expecting to start a business and make millions of dollars right away... your expectations are too high. You should lower your expectations. Instead of expecting to make a million dollars, you should strive to not lose a million dollars! That way you will never be disappointed (unless you loose a million dollars of course).

Lower your expectations and you will be successful!

Hippie Pothead Steals Idea, Burns Toast

2010-09-16T20:02:00.002-04:00

Well, I suppose it was inevitable that someday some goofy jamoke would get rich off an idea that was first published here. I just didn't expect it to be a hippie, and I didn't expect it to be Jesus toast. It serves us right for offering our brilliant and innovative ideas for free, and being too lazy to actually do anything with them.

In any case, on February 17th, 2010, we published a blog about making money by selling toast that looks like Mary or Che Guevara or Abe Lincoln. We also suggested modifying a toaster to make these images appear.

Well, today someone did just that: I give you http://www.jesustoasters.com/

This man wants to sell you a Jesus toaster. He is serious.

You may also be interested in knowing that he sells pot toasters too. Errr, that is, toasters that make pot leaves appear on bread. Not really meant for toasting pot, although I'm sure he's tried it, and I would guess that he liked it. Again, this is not a joke. Its a real product.

On his website, he says he thought of the idea in "the spring of 2010." The spring of 2010 of course followed shortly after we posted our blog about the idea, and I'm just going to assume he took our idea and ran with it, and never even gave us a shoutout.

Well anyway, we never actually made the toaster, and he did. We never patented the idea, and he did. We never took the risk of ordering a major production run of these toasters, and he did. We never issued a massive media blitz about it, and he did. So it looks like capitalism, ambition, and resourcefulness always win. I'm surprised it was a hippie who possessed all these qualities, but more power to him.

BTW, I'm not just calling him a hippie because he looks like a hippie and sells pot leaf toast. He says right up front that he's a hippie. Plus he lives in Vermont, so I think its a fair assumption from the get go.

Again, the place to go for all your specialty toasting needs and desires is http://www.jesustoasters.com/

Russian Finance Leader Turns to Alcohol for Answers, Suggests You do the Same

2010-09-08T05:56:00.006-04:00

Ok, well, in our last attempt to solve the global financial crisis, we suggested destroying stuff as a means of stimulating further production. This idea was, of course, utter lunacy, and has not worked very well. Nonetheless, if you are looking for an economic theory to justify your most recent car accident,Keynesian Economics is a good place to start.

But, if you are more inclined to discussing fiscal policy while falling into a drunken stupor in a smoke filled bar, then you should forget about Keynes and head to Russia. After all, if we learned anything from the past hundred years, its that when you need a good primer on effective economic theory, you should ask the Russians. And, naturally, just when the world needs a good idea, the land of 100 trillion rubles has come up with one.

Just this week, Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin urged all Russians to "Drink more alcohol and smoke more cigarettes..." Not kidding. Kudrin has been finance minister of Russia since 2000. He says that high taxes on cigarettes and alcohol help pay for Russia's social services, and he believes that if more Russians drink and smoke more, they may be able to pull Russia out of its deficit. Kudrin is the Russian equivalent to the U.S. Treasury Dept. and Federal Reserve combined, so presumably he knows something about economics. However, after looking into it, I've found that his primary qualifications for the job are:

1. Vladimir Putin appointed him.

2. Everyone who disagrees with Vladimir Putin has died in mysterious cases of accidental firing squad.

One of these two men rose to the top of the Soviet KGB and took control of Russia through assassinations, threats, and rigged elections. The other is a villain in a James Bond movie.

Well, enough about Czar Putin. Lets talk economics. Specifically, does this idea make any sense whatsoever? Lets consider the angles. Russia's primary exports are:
1. Oil, which they sell to China and Europe,
2. Black market weapons, which they sell to Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and me.
3. Thats it.

So, from the perspective of a finance minister with no professional qualifications whatsoever, it is easy to see how you could wind up turning to the bottle for your answers. Oil is good for your country, but oil alone can only get you about as far as Iran, which is a pretty lousy country. Selling nukes to third world dictators is a dodgy business that you would rather not think too hard about. This leaves you in a bad situation. May as well find solace in the drink. And once you're getting drunk and puffing on a cigarette, you may as well become a government appointed pusher and get everyone else to join you.

And now, some fun with pictures

Here's Vladimir Putin waving a crazy gun around in public. I think he's a reasonable guy to be in charge of the world's largest nuclear weapon cache, don't you? Aren't you glad the U.S. took the lead on nonproliferation?

Make money from a giant horse

2010-09-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

Most people stay away from buying horses. Horses usually cost a gigantic amount of money. But, if you buy a gigantic horse... you can actually make money. Its true... I saw it with my very own eyes at the fair. People were actually paying money to see to see Sampson the Giant Horse.

So... buy a giant horse, join the fair, and make money!

When you fall down... get up again, and again, and again, and again

2010-09-05T18:44:00.000-04:00

This video doesn't really have anything to do about making money... but it does have to do with not giving up. Whenever you fail... in life or in business.... trying again and again is vital to success!

Enjoy the video... we hope it is inspirational for everyone to be thankful for what we have in life as well as helping us to not give up. Try again and again and again every time we fail in life and business!

Make $0.60 from blogsvertise

2010-09-02T22:48:00.000-04:00

Several weeks ago we posted this blog about a website that has information on buying a house. We made $0.60 from this post. Not too bad for about 5 minutes of work. Better than the $.0024 per hour we have made working for the same company for 5 years!

The blog that we made $0.60 from was assigned to us from blogsvertise. Since we have been blacklisted from google's Adsense, blogsvertise has been one of the few ways we have been able to make revenue from blogging. So if you're looking to sign up for blogsvertise, it is not a scam. You won't make a ton of money... but you will make some... which is better than none!

Say dumb things about catalog pictures

2010-08-29T21:45:00.000-04:00

Supposedly you can make a lot of money making up "witty" comments about pictures found in catalogs. This website is dedicated entirely to this topic... http://catalogliving.net/

Here is an example of their work:

So, find something easy and sort of funny to blog about and you are sure to gain a cultish like following.

Modern Begging

2010-08-26T22:24:00.000-04:00

Tonight as I was walking from the grocery store to my car some high school kid asked me if I had a dollar. Which I replied "No." I'm assuming he wanted me to give him a dollar, even though he only asked me if I had a dollar. I did not have a dollar, so my answer was correct. Even if I did have cash, I would not have given it to him. I do not support just giving someone money. All he needed to do was come to howtomakeadollar and see all of our successful ways to earn $1. Or he could have simply walked in the grocery store and filled out a job application.

Anyways, people begging for money need to get with the times. People do not carry cash on themselves anymore. I never carry cash, I only have credit cards. So, if the high school kid would have said to me "I would like a dollar... oh by the way, I accept all major credit cards." If he would have told me he accepts credit cards... I would have given him a dollar.

So, if you are planning on begging for money, make sure you get a credit card scanner. This will definitely increase your revenue!

Convenience is the mother of all invention!

2010-08-24T22:50:00.000-04:00

You may have heard the quotation before "Necessity is the mother of all invention." Supposedly some guy named Plato said it. So it must be true. Wrong! This statement used to be true. Howtomakeadollar is officially declaring this statement obsolete... just like twitter and netscape navigator! Everyone has everything they need (at least in some places in the world, and most likely if you're reading this blog, you have everything you need).

Howtomakeadollar is officially stating for the world to see that we are the first people to declare that "Convenience is the mother of all invention." If anyone uses this phrase and makes money off of it, we are entitled to all of the royalties you receive... and by reading this statement you wholeheartedly agree to this. Its true... our needs are already supplied... its time to take it to the next level. You can make tons of money off of offering peoples "needs" "conveniently." Simple concept. Now go make an existing process or product more convenient and you will be rich!

Save $78,296.40

2010-08-22T21:43:00.000-04:00

It is a fact that everyone eats. Well, at least if you want to stay alive it is very important that you eat. It is also a fact that most people work. And for 83% of all of the working population, lunch time is the best part of the day! Howtomakeadollar would like the 83% of you reading this blog to enjoy your lunch even more. How can you do this you may ask. Simple... by saving money! Saving money is almost as good as making money!

Step by step plan to save money

1. Get a job

2. Eat lunch

3. Monday: Eat at McDonalds**: cost $4.35* (4 items off of the dollar menu)

4. Tuesday: Eat at Subway: cost $9.01 (foot long subway melt with combo deal)

5. Wednesday: Eat at KFC: cost $6.23 (#4 box lunch meal deal)

6. Thursday: Eat at CiCi's pizza: cost $5.34 (ALL YOU CAN EAT!)

7. Friday: Eat at Panera: cost $8.53

8. Stop doing step numbers 3-7

9. Bring your own lunch to work.

Stopping steps 3-7 and adhering to step 9 will save you $78,296.40 over your career.

*Taxes may vary by location, howtomakeadollar is not a certified tax consultant***
**McDonalds is a great and wonderful place... along with being one of the coolest places in the world, it is a great place to snag free change! People forget to pick up their change from those fancy change dispenser machines all the time! Remember: finders keepers
***Howtomakeadollar will become your very own certified tax consultant for only $1!

Making Money with Food Part 4: Sell food at a fair

2010-08-21T20:13:00.000-04:00

Today's blog is part of a series of blogs about how to make money with food-based businesses. To read the whole series, click here.

A really good way to make money is to sell things at Fairs. Fairs are fun and EXPENSIVE. For some reason whenever people go to Fairs and/or Carnivals* they spend money. Tons of money. It usually costs about $4 for a 30 second ride. Along with the rides being expensive, the food is ridiculously expensive. I was blown away by the fact that "fresh squeezed" lemonade cost $6. The "fresh squeezed" lemonade consisted of 95% ice, 4% water, and 1% Countrytime lemonade mix.

Also a good thing to sell.... food on a stick! Everyone knows food always tastes better on a stick.

*Is there a difference between a Fair and a Carnival?

Making Money With Food Part 3: Community Refrigerator

2010-08-20T06:17:00.000-04:00

Today's blog is part of a series of blogs about how to make money with food-based businesses. To read the whole series, click here.

I work in an office building with a kitchen that is shared by about 40 or 50 people. As you might expect, the shared refrigerator can get pretty nasty after a while. For this reason, every few weeks the head of the maintenance dept. will send out an email to the company and announce that all fridges will be cleaned out over the weekend.

This is where you come in. But first, let me explain what exactly you will be getting into. Most of the food left in a community fridge is quite nasty. I am persistently amazed at the disgusting things that people will leave in the fridge. One time I saw a whole dead fish - I mean, with eyes and scales and everything, laying on an open plate with a sheet of wax paper over top. It was gone later that day, so I guess somebody gutted a fish in the sink and then put it in the toaster oven until it was done, or maybe ate it raw.

On several occasions I've seen raw ground beef, usually in some sort of container, but not always. Again, they must be cooking the stuff in the toaster oven or eating it cold and raw, because thats all we have in the kitchen.

So, my point is that the fridge is a very gross place, and food that has been left there for more than a few days is even more disgusting. BUT, on any given weekend you can find a few decent items if you are a disgusting human being and have low enough dietary standards.

All you have to do is wait for the maintenance email to go out on a friday afternoon. Then, late in the day after most people have left, you just go to the fridge and grab anything you want. This isn't so much an idea for making money, but its a good way to save money if you are a disgusting enough individual. Also, you are doing the maintenance crew a favor. Last January I got me a half gallon of month-old egg nog. It was open, but egg nog gets better with time.

Making Money With Food Part 2: Cake-Fried Chicken

2010-08-19T06:08:00.000-04:00

This blog is part of a series on blogs on successful businesses that use innovative recipes to sell great food. Today we are focusing on a restaurant in San Francisco that sells fried chicken that is dipped in red velvet cake batter and then fried.

The secret ingredient for all good recipes is cake

Now, this may sound really good to you, but they don't just stop there. No. That would be one step short of perfection. So, after frying it in cake batter, they then roll it in cake crumbs. This step is vital to the whole process because it causes more cake to stick to the chicken, and we all know that the only thing better than cake-fried chicken is cake-fried chicken with extra cake.

Of course, this does raise some perfectly obvious questions. Namely, why are they limiting themselves to chicken? I mean, couldn't you fry nearly anything in cake batter and have it turn out better? Also, why are they only using red velvet cake? Don't get me wrong - I love me some red velvet cake, but I wonder why they don't try it with chocolate cake, or marble cake, or yellow cake, or whatever cake. I think this is the type of great idea that has made America great, and it needs to be expanded further into our day to day experiments with fried foods.

Making Money With Food Part 1: Donut Cheeseburger

2010-08-18T06:12:00.003-04:00

Today we will start a series of blogs about businesses based on food. We've already written about food on a few other occasions, including blogs about bacon, and blogs about fried candy bars.

Howtomakeadollar loves food, especially innovative foods, or innovative ideas with traditional foods.

Today's blog focuses on an innovative combination of two classic american foods: The cheeseburger and the donut. You may think that combining Krispy Kreme with a cheeseburger is gross. But, its not. Its actually a very good idea that has been growing in popularity over the past few years. Its pretty simple. You just slice a donut in half and stick a cheeseburger inside. Other variations include adding an egg, and adding bacon, which Howtomakeadollar supports.

Right now this burger is not widely available, but there is a semi-pro baseball team in St. Louis called the "Gateway Grizzlies," and these burgers are served there at all home games. Additionally the burger has become popular at the Wisconsin state fair.

This works against you if you are trying to buy one, but it works in your favor if you want to sell them. No competition yet.

How to sell your house

2010-08-17T23:15:00.000-04:00

As members of the blogsvertise network, we are occasionally assigned tasks to blog about. Today we are blogging about this website: http://click.lthosting.com/~adclicks/TTM2010/click.php?tid=472877

This website Is a website that is geared for people looking to sell their house. Unfortunately howtomakeadollar wanted to buy this house, but was unable to. Maybe if we had clicked on This website and entered our zip code a little sooner we would have been able to buy our dream house.

http://click.lthosting.com/~adclicks/TTM2010/click.php?tid=472877 is dedicated to helping people sell there house. If you are in the market for selling your house click on the link and enter your zip code to find out more.

As I mentioned this blog is brought to you through blogsvertise and we are compensated each time a reader clicks on this link and enters their zip code!

If it makes you feel better... this website is a "certified trustworthy site" as well as an" equal housing opportunity."

Don't forget... pictures are key to a successful blog!

Hard work: the only way to make money!

2010-08-16T22:42:00.000-04:00

Ideas are good, but if you never do anything with them they are worthless. So take an idea, any idea and try it out. It may just make you rich!

Howtomakeadollar has been able to offer our readers over 250 ideas... so take one of them and try it out. We have been able to take our ideas and have made almost $400 so far. Thats pretty good considering we only expected to make $1 off of each of our ideas. We are averaging $1.60 for each of our ideas. Not too bad.

Don't take our word for it though.... take God's word: "All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." Proverbs 14:23

Make $1.90 from soda cans

2010-08-15T22:22:00.000-04:00

Howtomakeadollar took our own advice and made money by recycling soda cans! You can read our advice here.

In the wonderful land of Michigan, you get paid to recycle. Michigan pays you $.10 per soda (aka pop) cans you turn in.

Step by step plan to make $1.90.

1. Go to Michigan.

2. Get soda cans (some people say they have to be purchased in Michigan, some do not, I don't know the answer because the cans I used were purchased in Michigan. Our official fact check guy will have to determine this one for you)

3. Go to the money making place (aka Bottle Return center) at your local grocery store.

4. Put the can in the hole that eats your can... while reminiscing about how wonderful Squirt is (howtomakeadollar is currently in negotiations with Squirt to work out the details of our sponsorship).

5. Collect your money!

How to save $399,000

2010-08-14T06:12:00.000-04:00

Step by Step plan to saving $399,000!

1. Find the coolest house in the world:

2. Find the coolest house in the world that has the coolest barn in the world:

3. Find the above mentioned house and barn within 10 miles of your current house

4. Find the above mentioned house and barn that has dropped in price by almost $600,000 while being on the market for the past 5 years.

5. Fall in love with the above mentioned house

6. Dream about all of the cool things you can do with a huge barn and almost 3 acres!

7. Dream about your great grandchildren coming to the barn to help PapPap with his garden and chickens

8. Put a contract on the above mentioned house and barn and have the seller choose another contract because the other contract had a slightly shorter settlement date than yours.

9. Save $399,000!

Simple plan. Good luck!

Adsense vs. Admarketplace

2010-08-13T23:48:00.000-04:00

Most people have heard about Googles Adsense. It is by far and away the best way for a small time blogger to make money. Unfortunately for those who have been following howtomakeadollar over the past several months, you would know that we no longer use Google's Adsense because we have been deemed a "significant risk" to google and their customers. We have been blacklisted by Google. Ever since our falling out with Google we have been on a mission to find a new source of revenue for our blog.

You may notice there are new "Adsense" like advertisements at the top of our blog. The ads are provided by Admarketplace. So far no one has clicked on the ads... which isn't surprising because telling people to click on our google ads got us blacklisted in the first place. So, I am not telling you to click on the ads at all. The purpose of this blog is to highlight an alternative to Google's Adsense. So, only click on an advertisement you are interested in. Do not "invalidly" click on the ads!

If you would like to help increase the revenue of howtomakeadollar... feel free to donate to us using the convenient button on the top right of this website!

Radioactive Wild Boars Running Wild in Germany

2010-08-11T19:50:00.001-04:00

Some things are just too strange to make up. For example, lets say I told you that the wild boar population of an industrialized European nation suddenly exploded, and large marauding hordes of wild boars were attacking citizens in the capital city. You'd probably assume I was making it up. But what if I added that these wild boars were also radioactive? Well, believe it or not, its true. A real German newspaper wrote about it here.

Just two weeks ago a herd of radioactive wild boars attacked a handicapped guy in Berlin. Not out in the woods, not in Zimbabwe. In the middle of Berlin.

The rapidly growing radioactive wild boar population is bad enough that the German government is paying bounties to hunters for every radioactive wild boar they kill. There is no reason you can't get in on this. All you need is a gun and the willingness to stand your ground and shoot herds of attacking radioactive wild boars. If this is something you think you can handle, then by all means get yourself over to Germany and let the killing begin. Somebody needs to put a stop to this.

And no, wild boars are not the same thing as pigs. They are enormous, they have really long, sharp fangs, they are aggressive, territorial, and very fast. They travel in large packs. Adding radioactivity to their bloodstream doesn't help.

This boar's head is about the size of two men, and his fangs, by the look of them, could go all the way through your head and come out the other side. Did I mention it is radioactive?

This is a lot of radioactive wild bacon

Enormous Ice Crusted Mountain For Sale in Wyoming

2010-08-10T19:26:00.000-04:00

The state of Wyoming, which, I am told, is kind of near California, has been having trouble paying its bills, and is planning to sell one of its many mountains to the highest bidder. Wyoming's only natural resources are mountains and the snow that is constantly clinging to them, and they are hoping to make the most out of these resources in order to pay for their state education budget. This is true. Read the news item here.

The mountain that is currently on the auction block is called Grand Teton. If you've heard of it, its because Grand Teton is one of the most photographed and beautiful mountains in the world, up there with Fuji, Kilimanjaro, and Rainier.

Grand Teton is the big one in the middle

I don't know who is going to buy this mountain, or what they will do with it, but I would guess that lots of ski lodge developers are interested, and I suppose some mining companies are probably interested. In any case, this is an example of making money off something that you already own.

Make Money by Being a Corporate Greeter

2010-08-09T20:30:00.000-04:00

If you've ever been to an out of town business conference, you probably were greeted by someone when you arrived at the hotel conference room, or, if you are important enough, they may have met you at the airport. In many cases these are contract workers who work as corporate greeters. They are meant to make clients and potential customers feel welcomed, and they can make good money.

Greeters for major corporations can make $3,000 to $6,000 per contract, usually only working for a few hours total. If you want to be a greeter you have to be physically attractive, have a good voice, and be friendly. These jobs are sporadic, so you probably won't be able to make a living off them, but you can certainly supplement your income this way.

Other greeters work at grocery stores and movie theaters. These people make considerably less money, but they don't have to be good looking, friendly, or anything. In fact, I think those traits are frowned upon.

Breaking News: Sun Fails to Explode! Supernova Insurance Prices Hit Bottom

2010-08-08T04:01:00.001-04:00

A few days ago scientists were convinced that the sun was about to erupt and completely annihilate the solar system. The Howtomakeadollar Insurance Group saw this as a golden opportunity to sell supernova pet insurance, which has been one of our lesser known insurance lines for a long time. As with supernova scares of the past, the market reacted very favorably to our press release (read it here).

However, it seems that the sun did not explode, and our solar system was not instantly sublimated into a dusty interstellar nebulum. For this reason, Howtomakeadollar forecasts a relatively quiet market for the next several billion years until the next supernova scare flares up. However, scientists unanimously believe that the sun will someday explode. For this reason we plan to continue offering our Supernova Pet Insurance policies to any interested parties at a low rate.

This policy will guarantee your pet's comfort, long term care, and survival in the event of a supernova. The policy will allow you to rest peacefully, knowing that even if you, your planet, and your solar system are decimated by a supernova, your dear pet Muffy will be provided with food, water, and, most importantly, Love for the duration of her life.
Supernova Pet Insurance prices have fallen through the floor. Now is the best time to ensure that your pet will be safe even if you die in a fiery galactic explosion.

Policies are $1 per pet.

Your card will look like this, with your pet's name

Who will take care of your pet when the sun explodes?

EASY $25!

2010-08-07T07:00:00.007-04:00

Howtomakeadollar recently made the easiest $25 we have ever made!

How did we get this awesome $25 American Express Gift card??? Easy, one of us worked for the same company for 5 years! Easy, easy, easy! It only took us 10,400 hours to make an extra $25... but it has definitely been worth it. $0.0024 per hour is not a bad bonus. We can't wait to see what we get after 10 years!

On a side note, American Express is not taken at every store or restaurant like the amazing VISA. It was rather disappointing the day I received the gift card and tried to use it to buy my lunch and was rejected because they did not take American Express. On top of disappointing, it was embarrassing that I had to borrow money to pay for my lunch because I didn't have any other money.

Junk mail that can make you rich

2010-08-06T06:12:00.002-04:00

Somehow I got on the March of Dimes mailing list. March of Dimes sends out solicitations several times a year. Most junk mail is worthless. The March of Dimes "junk mail" that I just received came with $.10! Thats right, the mailing had a dime attached to it. Pretty sweet. Easy money just for being on someone's mailing list. So hurry up and add yourself to their mailing list so one day you too can open up your mailbox and find FREE MONEY!

Bacon Prices on the Rise

2010-08-05T06:45:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago Howtomakeadollar wrote that the world's best business idea would be a bacon delivery truck that drives around playing bacon-themed music and selling fresh, sizzling bacon. No one has disputed this claim, and it is unlikely that anyone ever will, because bacon is awesome. You can read the original blog here.

Well, just to demonstrate my point, bacon prices are now about 50% higher than they were last summer. For real. This is a news item in the Wall Street Journal. Read about it here. This means that you'd be looking at major profits right now if you had taken our advice in starting a bacon business.

Now think about this in terms of the broader economy. Bacon profits are way up. Meanwhile, cars, houses, banks, and newspapers are down. These are supposed to be some of the strongest, most reliable long term industries in the world. Here is a chart that shows what would happen if you invested money in bacon vs the rest of the market over the past year.

Bacon is going through the roof!

Who Will Take Care of Your Pets When the Sun Explodes?

2010-08-04T06:27:00.018-04:00

Who will take care of your pets when the sun explodes?

You may have heard that scientists fully expect the sun to explode sometime later this evening or tomorrow. This is true. Howtomakeadollar is not lying. Read about here.

Ok, so now that you have read about it and have come to grips with this Tragic New Reality, you are no doubt trying to get your priorities straightened out for the next few hours. Do you have a lot of errands to run? Are you in the middle of some important stuff that can't wait? Maybe you were hoping to make some last minute fantasy baseball trades? If so, then you don't really have time to worry about the fate of your pets during the Supernova of 2010 do you?

A supernova is coming. Are your pets prepared?

Fortunately Howtomakeadollar offers Supernova Pet Insurance. If you are vaporized into a puff of carbon by a supernova, or are otherwise left incapacitated by a supernova, Howtomakeadollar will see to it that your pets are well fed and watered as they live out their final days on the wisps of smoke emitted by the annihilation of the solar system as it darkens, cools and slowly collects itself into an interstellar gas cloud.

You probably think that such a policy would cost billions of dollars, but Supernova Pet Insurance doesn't have to be expensive. For a limited time Howtomakeadollar is issuing Supernova Pet Insurance for $1.00 per pet. This is an absolute steal. Will you do that for your pet? Think about how Muffy will feel when she is blinded by a searing solar flare an instant before the entire world catches on fire and is condensed into a ball of metallic gasses. Without Supernova Pet Insurance she will feel frightened, hopeless, and alone.

For $1 you can get an official Howtomakeadollar Supernova Pet Insurance Policy. Your policy will guarantee your pet's safety and survival in the event of a supernova.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: SUN FAILS TO EXPLODE! PETS SAVED! PRICES SLASHED

China's trash island

2010-08-03T07:00:00.001-04:00

So, it looks like China has taken our advice and decided to make their very own Trash Island. Howtomakeadollar recommended making a trash island several months ago. You can read the blog here. It appears that from all of the storms and rain (caused by global warming) has been causing a large amount of trash and debris to collect at The Gorges Dam. The thousands of tons of garbage are so thick that you can walk on them.

China has taken our idea! We will be contacting our lawyers to sue them. We've heard they have a lot of money. We will let you know how much we get.

You can see the yahoo article about the Chinese Rip Off Our Idea Trash Island here.

Avoid Refinancing Scams!

2010-08-02T17:03:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago Howtomakeadollar wrote a blog about how you can save money by refinancing your home mortgage. This is still true. In fact, interest rates are slightly lower now than they were then, so if you haven't refinanced yet, you really should do so immediately. Read the original blog here. Howtomakeadollar is now saving $557 per month because we refinanced a house. Thats major money.

But you shouldn't just refinance with the first lender that sends you junk mail. Lots of these lenders are identity scams. For example, lots of people will watch realtor websites for homes that have recently been sold. Once they get the address, they will send an official looking letter to the address, and give themselves a respectable name like "American Mortgage Group Inc.*" and they will urge you to refinance. They will offer some kind of interest rate that looks believable, but is lower than the current going rate.

The refinance process involves a lot of paperwork, including your social security no, your birthday, your W-2 forms, and all that stuff. So if you respond to the advertisement, they will ask you for this info. Once you send it to them, they are gone, and they have your identity. Its a really simple scam, and its nearly impossible to detect because all loans require this info from you.

You will probably also get similar offers through email. You can't really look them up online either, because its pretty easy to set up a respectable website online. As soon as the name they are using starts getting associated with scams, they will just change the name. So its virtually impossible to tell the legitimate lenders from the scammers. Just go with a respected lender thats been around for a while. If you've heard of them, they are probably legit.

*I have no idea if "American Mortgage Group Inc." is a real company. I made it up. Hopefully I don't get sued for defamation. My point is that scammers will use very normal and believable names.

blogsvertise is not a scam!

2010-08-01T07:00:00.003-04:00

So, believe it or not we received $20 for writing this blog. It was a blog that we were assigned to write after signing up for blogsvertise. Thats not bad at all... writing one blog for $20. If we got paid that much for every single blog we have written we'd have about $5,000. Unfortunately, we have only received one blog assignment from blogsvertise.

Blogsvertise is good for about $20 every other month and thats about it. So moral of the story is... don't get blacklisted from Google's Adsense!

Make Money by Scalping Sports Tickets

2010-07-31T19:35:00.000-04:00

People in the U.S. love attending championship sports events, but tickets are usually impossible to find, and are always bought up early by big corporations that use them as gifts to clients. This makes it really hard for average fans to get their tickets.

Playoff tickets are hard to buy ahead of time because nobody knows which teams will be advancing to the playoffs until the last few days of the season. Well, Major League Baseball has created a program for buying ticket reservations ahead of time, before the actual events. You can reserve some tickets for your team right now, before they even qualify for the playoffs. Then, if they do qualify, you can buy the tickets at their regular price. This system enables ordinary fans to buy tickets for their favorite team before the tickets are snatched up by others. Of course, the reservation costs money, so you probably don't need to bother reserving tickets for the Orioles or the Royals right now, but it would probably be worthwhile for teams that are well in front of their divisions like Rangers, or maybe the Braves.

Once you get your ticket you can either use it to attend the game, or stand around outside the event and scalp it to some sucker who didn't know about the reservation system

Reserve tickets here: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/tickets/ticket_reservations.jsp

Roanoke Diamond Dash!

2010-07-30T07:00:00.002-04:00

Occasionally companies do crazy things to get people interested in their stores and generate a bunch of buzz about themselves. One way a company can do this is to give away a $15,000 diamond ring! That is exactly what Fink's Jewelers is doing in Roanoke, Virginia this weekend. You can sign up and check out all of the details at RoanokeDiamonDash.com! Basically you sign up, get selected to participate, show up, do a good job in the scavenger hunt, and win a $15,000 diamond ring! Simple as that.

Howtomakeadollar is participating in this extravaganza this weekend. We will let you know how it goes and put up a picture of our diamond ring grand prize!

Make Money by Enrolling Yourself in a Medical Test

2010-07-29T21:42:00.000-04:00

Drug companies always have to go through a really long testing phase before they are approved to sell their drugs to patients. This process usually takes 10 to 20 years to complete, and drug companies spend significant time and money looking for people who qualify to enroll in a clinical trial. Most of these trials require the person to already have a certain disease or condition, but others are simply tests for vitamin supplements, and others are for common problems like colds, allergies, or the flu.

So, if you don't mind submitting yourself to needles, pills, and medical exams, you can go to http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/search/browse and look for an active clinical trial and enroll yourself in it as a human guinea pig. Pretty much all of these trials will pay you to be tested. go have a look. There may be something going on in your region, and you can pick up decent cash this way. The only risk is that these drugs have not been adequately tested yet, and they might come with ridiculous side effects. Thats why they are testing them.

Make Money by Selling Low Priced Products

2010-07-28T20:25:00.001-04:00

You may have heard about the $35 computer by now. If not, you can read up on it here. A company in India has created a computer that costs only $35 dollars. It is extremely basic, and only provides a screen with a touch screen keyboard, and an Internet browser. But at that price, it is going to be available to the population of India of over 1 billion people. India, you probably know, is developing its economy very quickly, but it still has an enormous population of poor people, probably about 900 million. This population is educated, but very poor. They can't afford an ordinary computer, but they would know what to do with one if they had one.

Well, now this population is about to be exposed to a computer that costs $35. They will be able to do almost all the things you and I do on our computers. The only real difference is that they will have to save everything online, using programs like google docs to save their work. They don't really have cameras or iPods, so they aren't worried about storing pictures and music and videos, but they will be able to get work done. In a developing economy, getting work into the hands of 900 million people is going to be a major benefit to India and will pull a lot of people out of poverty.

This is an example of capitalism free from high government restrictions, regulations, and taxes. In its purest form, capitalism lowers prices and pulls people out of poverty on a massive scale. Not by raising prices and gobbling up profits, but by lowering prices and getting products into the hands of consumers who need them.

You may have also heard about the Tata Nano, a $2000 car built by Tata Motors in India. Its a small little car, but brand new it only costs $2,000. Its perfect for a developing country. Right now India is positioning itself for major economic growth going forward. They have business-friendly government policies, and they are not bogged down by lots of restrictions, regulations, fees, permits and taxes.

Make Money in the Third World Part 6: The Crime Syndicate Taxi

2010-07-27T05:50:00.000-04:00

This is the sixth part in a series on real-life businesses that operate in third world nations. You can read the whole series here. So far each of our businesses that we've highlighted has been relatively harmless. Yes, there was the flaming roadblock, and the snake charmers, but in general even these are relatively benign for a tourist to witness. However, travel to the third world is not all fun and games and wacky businesses. There is a darker side to travelling in these countries.

Today we highlight the crime syndicate taxi in La Paz, Bolivia

Western Bolivia is a major tourist destination in South America. The city of La Paz sits in a valley surrounded by 20,000 foot mountains that are snow capped year round. It is the primary hub from which tourists visit Lake Titicaca, and is relatively close to the world's largest salt flat (sounds boring, but is awesome).

For this reason, there are gazillions of tourists running around at all times, and foreign money is one of the primary sources of revenue for the city, which is surrounded by inhospitable mountains and the arid Altiplano, on which nothing can grow. There are lots of legitimate tourist services in La Paz, but there are at least as many swindlers and thugs.

La Paz has a robust taxi system, and all legitimate taxis are registered with the city government. These taxis are always white with a green stripe, and always have a telephone number printed prominently on both sides of the side of the car. However, there are other illegitimate taxis all over the city. If you walk down a main street, you will probably see three or four of them drive past you. They are everywhere. A very common crime in La Paz is for one of these rogue taxis to wait around by the La Paz airport, or one of the major bus hubs, and pick up a tourist or two. The driver will be friendly and offer a good deal, but will promptly drive them to a spot where a gang of thugs are waiting. The thugs will drag the tourists out of the car, strip them naked, and take all of their stuff. Sometimes they murder their victims, sometimes they just beat them up. Its very common.

I was aware of this practice during my time in La Paz, and it probably saved me on at least one occasion. I had just returned from a bus trip to Titicaca, and a rogue taxi pulled up to pick me up. A passenger got out and grabbed my backpack and tried to load it into the taxi. Both he and the driver were extremely pushy about getting me to get in the car, but I shoved the "helper," grabbed my backpack, and hailed another legit cab. A group of onlookers took up my defense and yelled at the rogue driver. I don't know. Maybe they were just being helpful, but I doubt it.

In any case, this kind of thing is pretty common in large third world cities. La Paz has a reputation for it, but if you do any travelling to poverty stricken nations, you should be aware of your travel arrangements and be careful what cars you get into.

Make Money in the Third World Part 5: Selling Junk

2010-07-26T16:54:00.000-04:00

This is the fifth part in a series on real world businesses that Howtomakeadollar has witnessed operating in third world nations. You can read the whole series here.

I spent a few months living in the Maghreb several years ago, and every single morning I was awakened at around 5:30 AM by a guy riding an old bike through my neighborhood. Every two or three seconds he would shout "REEEEEEEEP," and he would pedal around extremely slowly, weaving around like a drunk. Attached to the front of his bike was a tray covered with all kinds of items. Sometimes he would have tin cans, or glass bottles. Other times it would be rusty nails, a shoe, and some old sunglasses.

Throughout the day I would encounter the guy all over the place, often several miles from my neighborhood. I have no idea what "REEEEEEEEEEP" means, or even what language it is. I suspect it is Berber, and I suspect it means something like "Buy my stuff."

I doubt he made much money off his stuff, but he seemed to have something different every day, so he must have had some amount of turnover. On a few occasions I saw people buying stuff from him. His business consisted of riding around, picking up any item he found on the street, and selling the stuff he found to anyone who happened to want or need it.

Like I said, there is no way he was making a lot of money off this, but he was definitely surviving. This kind of thing is very common in the third world, but I remember this guy because he woke me up every day, and I never figured out what "REEEEEEEP" means.

Make Money in the Third World Part 4: Snake Charming

2010-07-25T05:57:00.000-04:00

Howtomakeadollar is running a series of blogs about real-life businesses that we've encountered in poverty stricken nations around the world. In these countries people are very innovative and find all kinds of unique ways to make money. To read the whole series, click here.

The snake chamer - In the U.S. we have very few open markets. Occasionally a farmers market may open in a town, but this is usually only for a few weekends per year, and it is limited to locally grown foods. In the third world there are enormous markets full of individual stands selling pretty much anything you can imagine, not just food. India and many Arab countries are particularly famous for their open markets where you can test your bartering skills and hunt for good deals on stuff.
One cool thing that you can find in most open markets in India, the Middle East, and North Africa are snake charmers. Real-life snake charming is a high risk job. Its a guy with a little flute instrument who will sit down in front of a basket with a cobra or two in it. As he plays, the cobra will slowly come out and stare at him playing, and will eventually start to sway with the music... If he's lucky.
In reality, the cobras will sometimes just slither out of the bag and try to get away. Occasionally they attack the charmer, or onlookers. Its not exactly a safe job. But if you have good snake handling skills and a net with a long pole you can usually scoop your cobra back up before it gets away or eats a little kid. Charmers who try to do more than one cobra at a time are really cool to watch, but you should stay back a good distance, because cobras can spit their poison pretty far, and they aim for your eyes, which will blind you, or at least cause major damage to your eyes. This is why most snake charmers have such weird looking eyes, or keep them closed. Many of them are blind in at least one eye.

Usually these snake charmers will just sit down in the middle of the market, and once people see what is going on, they clear out of the way, leaving a nice open area around the snake and the charmer. The snake charmer always has an assistant or two who stand around scanning the crowd of onlookers. They will approach anyone who looks at the snake charmer and charge them money for watching. If you are walking past and even glance at the spectacle, you can bet that someone is going to run after you and demand money. They are extremely pushy, and will grab you by the arm and yell at you to pay up. You should pay them about 1/4 of what they ask, but you should pay them, because thats how they make a living. Also, they have cobras that may or may not attack you if they play a certain note. In any case, its really cool to watch, and once you've paid they will leave you alone.

If you take a picture they will charge you more money, or they will grab your camera and delete it. (really). I don't know what they would do if you have a film camera, but you should pay them and not worry about it.

Make Money in the Third World Part 3: The Toll Road

2010-07-24T00:21:00.002-04:00

This is the third part in a series on ways to make money in the Third World. All anecdotes in this series are true. You can read the entire series here.

The "toll" road - In lots of third world countries there are only a few main "roads" that connect one region to another. This makes these roads extremely important, and since these nations are poor, the roads are often in terrible condition. If a mudslide or storm washes out the road (common in the tropics), it can create a major problem for the cities along that road. I've seen potato prices go up by a factor of 10 in just a few weeks when a storm washed out the only road in the region. Truckers loaded with potatoes and sugar cane were stopped for over six weeks waiting for a road to open. During that time the only food they had was their cargo. So the truck drivers stranded in the mudslide ate good while the city starved. Such is life in the third world.

Well, in these kinds of societies there are lots of opportunistic people. On more than one occasion I've seen roadblocks set up at key junctions leading into major cities. These aren't just ordinary North American roadblocks either, with a few red cones. Cones don't stop truckers. No. These people would cut down several enormous trees and lay them across the road and set them on fire. I'm talking about a bonfire with 20 foot high flames. They would throw tires on top. One time they dug up the road and used it to create a mound of blacktop, rubble, and dirt. They dug all the way across the road, about a 10-15 foot deep trench, the entire width of the road, and about as wide as it was deep. With all the rubble they collected, they erected a large mound. On top of the mound were flaming tires. This particular roadblock was set up so that a narrow passage around the road was just barely possible to drive through. The roadblock served to slow traffic down to about 1 mph. As the vehicles slowed down, people would jump in front of them and demand money. If you didn't pay you got flaming tires rolled in front of you and you had to back out. If you did pay, you went on through. They only charged about the equivalent of .50 cents per car, but traffic was backed up in both directions for over a mile, and I'm sure they made a lot of money. After about a week they put the fires out, dragged the trees off the road, and shoveled the rubble back into their trench and went away. I guess they had made enough money. This kind of thing is pretty common, and is not regarded as criminal. Its considered to be a legitimate way of doing things. Usually police will come and stand around in case violence breaks out, but they don't stop the actual blockage.

Make Money in the Third World Part 2: Toilet Paper Partnership

2010-07-23T00:19:00.003-04:00

This is the second part of a series that Howtomakeadollar is running for business ideas that we've witnessed in action in various third world nations. You can read the whole series here.

The toilet paper partnership - While travelling by bus on a 15 hour trek across the Andes, my bus stopped at a single little town in the middle of nowhere. The town consisted of a bunch of stray dogs and a house with a "bathroom" in it. There may have been a few other homes there too, but it was an extremely small town. The bathroom was free to all travelers, but a guy stood outside of it with toilet paper, which cost the equivalent of .10 cents per sheet. Thats per sheet. You know, the little 5 square inch sheets of toilet paper that are perforated. Well, to get a good wipe you need more than one sheet, and the whole bus was full of people who's last meal had been some kind of "roasted" "chicken" that the bus had stopped to pick up a few hours before. So pretty much everyone on the bus had to use this guy's jiffy, and he was making loads of cash. He paid the bus driver a considerable portion of it before the bus left. It was a partnership.

Make Money in the Third World Part 1: Selling "Turkey" to Muslims

2010-07-22T00:17:00.006-04:00

I've lived in a few poverty stricken nations in my day, and I've seen people scratching out a living using all kinds of ridiculous techniques. Howtomakeadollar is going to run a series over the next few days of true examples of Third World business models. To read the whole series, click here.

The "turkey" sandwich - I spent some time living in a Muslim theocracy several years ago. In these nations it is illegal to eat pork, or to have pigs, or anything related to pigs. There are lots of rules in these countries, and they are enforced strictly. They don't just give you a fine or something. They cut out your tongue (to punish you for tasting forbidden food) and cut off your right hand (just because) and then they put you in a prison for long time, and then they fine you. That type of thing. Not only are the laws strict, but there are so many of them that they are constantly creating Catch-22 situations in which it is impossible to obey all of them. Thats just the way it works over there.

Well one time I stumbled upon a little shack-restaurant that constantly had a long line of customers. Over a few weeks I noticed that this place was popular, and I asked people what it served. They all said essentially "this is the best turkey sandwich in the world." So I gave it a try. But it wasn't turkey. It was ham. It was obviously ham. It was dark pink, and tasted like ham. There was no turkey in the sandwich at all. Now remember. Everyone in this country is a Muslim. Ham is illegal. Nobody in this country has ever even tasted ham or seen a pig. So the guy running this shack was telling everyone that it was turkey so that he wouldn't get arrested for selling it, and all the customers were calling it turkey so that they wouldn't get arrested for eating it. In fact, I honestly believe that most of his customers actually thought it was turkey. Ham is completely foreign there. Its not that they've never eaten it. Its that they don't even know it exists. But I know it exists. After biting into it I winked at the owner. He glared at me. It was our secret.* I don't know where this guy was getting his ham. I have no idea. He was hundreds of miles away from the nearest country where pigs could be legally raised. But he was selling it like crazy, and nobody could turn him in for it.

If someone did try to turn him in, the cops would ask how the person knew it was ham. If the person said it looks or tastes like ham, the cops would ask them how they know what ham looks like, or tastes like. At this point any answer they give would land them in prison with their tongue cut off. Best to just call it turkey.

*He could have glared at me because a man winking at another man might be illegal there, or he may have glared at me because its illegal not to glare. Someone will have to ask an imam to sort this out.

Make Money by Trading Stuff for Other Stuff

2010-07-21T15:38:00.001-04:00

Howtomakeadollar is a frequent practitioner of an idea known as "Trade Up," or sometimes called "Bigger and Better." The premise of this idea is that you start with something relatively small and common, like a tater tot, and you go around and trade it to someone for something else. Then you trade that item for something else, and so on. Eventually you work your way up to something decent that you actually need, like beef jerky. I pretty much always stop when I've successfully traded up to beef jerky. But it needs to be BEEF jerky, not any of that turkey jerky. That stuff is ok, but if you're going to get jerky, you want it to be beef. Thats just my opinion.

Well, you don't have to stop at beef jerky. You can keep going. In fact, one time when Howtomakeadollar did this, we started out with a bic pen and within about an hour we had traded up to a treadmill and two one-day golf cart rentals. We only had the golf carts for the day, but we got to keep the treadmill. No kidding. We probably made six or seven trades total in that hour. But that was a long time ago in the middle of Maine , and I don't really like Maine anymore. If you're going to go to New England (not recommended) you may as well go to New Hampshire. Its way better in New Hampshire, and there are fewer lobsters.

I don't know what Howtomakeadollar did with the treadmill. We probably left it in the back of one of the golf carts by accident.

NOTE TO OTHER MEMBERS OF HOWTOMAKEADOLLAR: Which one of you guys was supposed to get the treadmill? Think of all the ways we could have used that!

But we didn't need to stop there either. In fact, there is a guy in Canada who started with nothing but a paperclip, and over a series of trades, wound up with a house. It was in Canada , which is worse than Maine , and all his neighbors are probably really into curling, but it was a free house. Thats pretty amazing. Another guy started with an old cell phone and traded up to a Porsche. I guess some people just don't like beef jerky.

In any case, Trading Up is a very good way to get something for nothing, and if you are willing to work for it and put a lot of effort into it, you can get some pretty valuable things this way.

Make Money by Cleaning out your car

2010-07-20T15:44:00.001-04:00

Today's blog is just a re-posting of a blog we wrote several months ago. I recently endeavored to clean out my car and was pleased to make over $5 in the process, so this is definitely a proven business strategy.

This business is actually a pretty easy one to run. All you need is a car.

Business Description: If you've owned a car for very long, chances are it has gotten kind of messy. There are probably broken pieces of doritos all around the drivers seat. Usually you can find a french fry or two, and sometimes you can even find a bag of groceries. In addition to food related trash, you will probably find a few receipts, napkins, and used condoms. Its a good idea to clean and vacuum your car a few times a year, and most people do this anyway. But what if I told you that you could make money while you did this? You'd be interested right?

Well you can.

You see, in addition to all the trash that you find in your car, you will probably also find a few pennies, nickels and dimes. If you are lucky you may even find some quarters. This can add up to a dollar or more.

Go ahead, scoff.

But why stop with a there? If you clean your car once a day every day of the year, you would make $365.00. If you clean it twice a day you would make $730.00

Now who is scoffing?

Related Business Ideas: Try on an old coat that you haven't worn since last winter, and check the pockets. Do this every year.

Ultra-Related Business Ideas: Clean out other people's cars for a small fee, keep the change as a tip.

Make Money by Giving Stuff Away for Free

2010-07-19T16:32:00.000-04:00

It seems like a bad business model to give stuff away for free right? Well, thats because in most situations it is a bad business model. But in some cases, you can actually do better by giving something away, so long as you do it right.

Think of Google. When Google's original search algorithm was created, the founders intended to sell it to Stanford University as an internal search engine that the university could use to improve its research capabilities. Well, what would have happened if they had sold their algorithm? They probably wouldn't have created the Google we know today would they? Nope. It would have been named something like "UniSearch," and the only people who used it would be nerdy grad students at Stanford. Instead, after they realized how good their engine was, they decided to run it for free on the Internet for all users. By opening up a superior product for free to everyone in the world, they ensured a massive base of users, and figured that they could find a way to make money off of this base. Google has been selling ads on its searches almost since the very beginning. These ads provide the revenue Google needs in order to continue operations. But in order to ensure it keeps its enormous consumer base, Google has to continually offer improved services for free. Thats why they now offer blogging software, Youtube, maps, and Google Earth (not to mention hundreds of other services). They give all of this away for free just to ensure that they keep their users happy.

Hewlett-Packard also follows a similar concept. They sell their printers at a loss - a significant loss. But they know that if consumers buy their low-priced printers, these consumers will have to come back to buy ink and toner from HP. By being willing to sell one product at a loss, they ensure that they will have a large customer base that buys their other products at a profit. This keeps HP profitable, and puts tremendous pressure on their competitors to sell low-priced printers. The customer doesn't mind either.

Make Money by Adding Sugar to Water

2010-07-18T18:25:00.002-04:00

A proven strategy for making big money is taking water, sugar, and food coloring, and adding them together. A few artificial flavors mixed in doesn't hurt either. Here is a list of just a few of the companies that have profited from sugar water

Coca-Cola - Last year's revenue - $31 billion
Arizona Beverage Co. - Last year's revenue - 2.5 billion
Pepsi - Last year's revenue - 44.3 billion
Dr Pepper Snapple Group - Last year's revenue - $5.531 billion
Hansen Natural Corp. - Last year's revenue - 1.14 billion
Red Bull GMBH - Last year's revenue - €3.3 billion

There you have it. Between these six sugar-water companies you have an annual revenue of $84.471 billion. Or, written out, you have a revenue of $84,471,000,000.00. I did not add the Red Bull GMBH revenue to this figure because it is European, and I have no idea how many dollars €3.3 billion is. I don't even know what that symbol means. It could be play money for all I know.

I have not included several major sugar-water brands like Lipton, Kool-Aid, and Hawaiian Punch because they are brands owned by large conglomerates such as Unilever and Kraft, not actual companies. Obviously there are tons of smaller brands of sugar water, and 10 different generic brands for every major brand. I think its safe to say that the sugar water industry is worth at least $100 billion annually, probably closer to $200 billion.

There is nothing stopping you from getting into this market. Just think up a flavor, then dump it in a bottle full of sugar water.

Get a Better Job and Better Pay by Enhancing Your Resume

2010-07-17T06:59:00.022-04:00

I'm sure you have heard that unemployment is getting to be a pretty big problem around the world. Everybody seems to have a solution for how to solve it, but so far none of the ideas have worked. Well, you've come to the right place, because Howtomakeadollar has a lot of experience at getting jobs using one simple trick.

Most people apply for jobs by sending a resume and cover letter to the company they want to work for. The problem with this technique is that most businesses get overwhelmed with resumes and it is hard to make yourself stand out from all the other people who are applying for the job. You need to make yourself look better than all of these people if you want to get a job. The best way to do this is to make stuff up. Let me explain

You probably think that making spelling and grammatical errors on your resume will hurt you. But this is not necessarily true. It all depends on what kinds of mistakes you make.

For example, lets say that the job you are looking for requires a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, but you don't have one. This is very simple. Just write "I have an MBA degree" on your resume. Is this a lie? No. Its a mistake. You meant to write "I don't have an MBA degree," but you messed up, and spell check didn't catch it. Spell check is useless. It never catches anything. Spell check is about as effective as a blind guy trying to drive a car at night. I don't know what difference it makes that its night time. Just forget I mentioned it.

Howtomakeadollar can vouch that this is a reliable way to stand out from other job applicants, and is a good way to get a raise at your current job as well. If everybody in the country did this, the unemployment rate would go down to zero and everybody would have a job.

Make Money with Psychic Animals

2010-07-16T04:23:00.001-04:00

You may have heard, during the World Cup, of a German octopus named Paul who was able to accurately predict the winner of all the soccer matches. People would put the flags of various nations into his tank, and he would swim over to the flag of the nation that would win the match and try to eat it. Apparently he was right 100% of the time, which is better than most of the soccer experts on TV. Wikipedia says the odds of this happening by chance are about 255 to 1.

What is that calamari doing on a Spanish flag?

I was peripherally aware of this ongoing event, but did not take a strong interest in it because, frankly, its just another fortune telling octopus, and is not really a big deal. Get me an octopus that can predict the weather, stock market movements, or lottery numbers, and then I'll pay attention. Paul the Octopus is just a reliable guesser of soccer outcomes, which is only marginally more interesting than being a reliable guesser of how fast paint will dry.*

Anyway, Paul the Octopus somehow established an international following of believers. Believers.

And if you can get millions of people around the world to believe in the prognostications of an internationally acclaimed cephalopod, then you can pretty much get anything you want. This is how Paul the Octopus's owners plan to make their millions. Several marketing consultants have suggested that Paul could be worth about $4.5 million as a product "spokesman," and could also charge significant fees for public appearances. Even if he loses his abilities, I'm sure you could turn him into calamari and sell him to a good restaurant for about $40 per pound.

*Actually, I'm going to take that back. An octopus that could definitively tell me how long it will take to get my stairwell painted would be quite useful to me. There, I said it. Soccer matches are less interesting than painting a stairwell.

Make money by standing really really still

2010-07-15T06:00:00.002-04:00

One way to make money is to stand in a crowded area really really still. Seriously, people do it all the time and make good money.

Stepy by step plan to make money standing really still

Step 1. Get a goofy looking outfit. It doesn't really have to be as elaborate as the picture above.

Step 2. Find a really crowded place. Place a bucket in front of you

Step 3. Stand really really still for a long time.

Step 4. Repeat step 3 over and over again.

Step 5. Collect money. Seriously, people will just open up their wallets and give you their hard earned money.

Step 6. To make extra money, charge people to take pictures with you. The extra creepy you are, the more you charge them.

Save Money by Never Paying for a Haircut

2010-07-14T06:15:00.000-04:00

Seriously, how much do haircuts cost nowadays? Last time I went to happy hair the lady charged me $15.00 for a 10 minute clear cut. Then she had the nerve to say "How much would you like to put on your card?" This is the haircutter's way of saying "You need to tip me because your hair is gross." So, all told, a basic haircut costs almost $20 nowadays.
Well, Howtomakeadollar will not stand for this any longer. We aren't going to pay for anymore haircuts.

Why pay for a haircut when you can do it yourself?

A good way to get free haircuts is to get married and have your spouse do it. My wife has been giving me haircuts for almost two years now, and she's pretty good at it. All you need is a hair trimmer and a bunch of attachments that cut your hair at various lengths. I always get a size two attachments for the sides of my head, and then a 7 or 8 on top. A two blade cuts my hair very short, which is the way I like it. I would ordinarily get like eight or nine haircuts per year. At $15 each, this comes to about $120 that I am saving. Fortunately my wife does not make me tip her, so I come out ahead in that regard as well.

Plan B, if your spouse refuses to cut your hair, is just let it grow out forever. This will be good for your marriage because it will promote healthy competition between you over who can hold out the longest. Ultimately, they are the ones that have to look at you every day, so I think you will win eventually. You just have to be willing to let your hair get really goofy.

Happy Birthday Naomi!

2010-07-13T00:40:00.000-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAOMI!!!! Congratulations... your husband Andrew loves you so much he has dedicated this blog to you for the entire day!

Thanks for being so wonderful. I love you so much and I am so grateful you are my wife and best friend! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Thanks for being the best mommy in the world!

Happy birthday to the my wonderful wife
you are definitely the best part of my life
you are so wonderful and cool
I'm so glad we met in school

You are my very best friend
I know you will be with me until the end
You are so very cute
and very good at playing the flute

This poem is just for you
the time spent with you is too few
You are so great
everyday with you is like being on a date

I'm glad you are the one for me
you make me into the man I want to be
thank you for being my soul mate
you are so very great!

This blog is also featured on www.todayisjustfyou.com

Start a Business Training Skilled Dogs

2010-07-12T07:59:00.001-04:00

Everybody knows about Seeing Eye dogs right? And I'm sure you've heard of drug sniffing dogs and bomb sniffing dogs too. These are dogs that are trained from birth to reliably perform complex tasks that help make life better for their owners. I think Seeing Eye dogs are incredibly fascinating. The other dogs are just sniffers. Thats a tough skill that requires a lot of training, but a Seeing Eye Dog has to learn to think and see like a human. They are amazing. Other dogs are trained to identify peanuts for people with severe allergies. When I came back from an undisclosed South American nation there were fruit sniffing beagles all over the Miami airport, sniffing for fruit. I don't really know why the customs people were so concerned with fruit, but, those beagles were finding it everywhere. These dogs cost thousands of dollars. The people who train them can make big money.

Well, enough about all of that. You probably don't know the first thing about how to train these kinds of expert dogs. What you need to do is get dogs who can find stuff without any training whatsoever. To do that you need to specialize in a select variety of people. For example, some people are afraid of heights. Well, most dogs are afraid of heights too. Put 100 dogs on the edge of a cliff and every single one of them will get off the edge and back to safety. There. Now you have a "Heights Finding Dog." You can sell it to people who are afraid of heights, and it will save their lives and you will be a hero and a millionaire.

There are lots of bizarre fears that people have, and dogs can solve most of them. I've posted a list below

Felinophobia- Fear of cats
All dogs would be good at this one. If the dog finds a cat, not only will he alert the owner by barking and going crazy, but he will even chase the cat from the premises. Most of these dogs will also perform complementary squirrel elimination as well. This is a value added service. Most bomb sniffing dogs will simply identify the problem, not eliminate it. A cat sniffer goes the extra mile. I actually know a woman who is afraid of cats. No joke. She is terrified of them.

Helminthophobia- Fear of being infested with worms.
No kidding. This is a real phobia that people have. I had never thought of being infested with worms until I heard of this phobia, but now that I think about it, its actually quite terrifying. I don't really know how dogs could eliminate the threat of a worm infestation, but I bet they would bark a lot, and alert you that a herd of worms were coming your way.

Hypengyophobia - Fear of responsibility
Again, dogs wouldn't necessarily be able to eliminate all responsibility from your life, but dogs are extremely lazy, so they would at least commiserate with you about it. Again, this is a real fear that some people have. Not made up.

Russophobia- Fear of Russians- I don't know how to get a dog to detect Russians, but man, this would have been really useful back when Russian spies were a big deal.

Make money by kidnapping things

2010-07-11T07:00:00.000-04:00

Kidnapping can be a very lucrative business. Howtomakeadollar does not support kidnapping people. Well, actually thinking back on it... we have written a post on how to make money kidnapping a terrorist... so I take back my last statement. Howtomakeadollar does support the kidnapping of people... at least terrorists. The problem with most kidnappers is they expect too much in return for their business. Seriously... do you really need $37,000,000 ransom? No.

Howtomakeadollar's step by step kidnapping business plan:

1. Kidnap something (objects are much easier to kidnap then people). We recommend the object meets the following criteria: be of some value, absence of this item will be an inconvenience to the person it is taken from, easy to kidnap. Examples of good items to kidnap: car keys, reading glasses, shoes, cell phones, tennis rackets, metal detectors.

2. Inform the person their item has been kidnapped

3. Ask Demand ransom. This is the crucial step... do you ask for $37,000,000. Ask for a reasonable number... say $1. Most people will give you the dollar because they are really annoyed with you and want their item back... and well it is simply easier for them to give you $1 then to call the FBI to come investigate the kidnapping of their cell phone.

4. Collect money

Save money by refinancing all your debt

2010-07-10T00:05:00.003-04:00

If you pay attention to the financial markets you probably heard that interest rates reached a 50 year low this week. I will leave it to the economists to discuss whether this is good for the economy or not, but for the average individual, this is a great news.

Most people in the U.S. owe money on their houses, and many people owe money on cars, credit cards, and school loans. For the purpose of this blog I'll primarily discuss why you should refinance your house right now, but almost any debt can be refinanced if you find the right lender.

Most people who are paying a 30 year mortgage on their house are paying about a 6.5% interest rate. This rate is usually a fixed rate that will remain exactly the same for the entire 30 year period. The exact rate you have will vary depending on what it was when you bought the house, but it won't change over time. Howtomakeadollar owns a house with a 5.875% interest rate. This was considered to be an historic low when the house was purchased, and Howtomakeadollar felt very good about the rate. However, this week the average rates are down below 4.5%, which is outrageously, astoundingly low, and some discount lenders are as low as 4.1%, which has never happened before in the history of the world. (seriously)

Lets say you owe $300,000 on your house. If you are paying this on a 30 year loan at a 6.5% rate, then your monthly payment will be 1896.20. Of course, when you factor in taxes and insurance, your payment will actually be significantly higher than this, but you don't have much control over those costs.

You do have control over your interest rate. Right now, if you refinance the same amount and qualify for a 4.1% rate, your payment will be 1449.60. So if you have a 6.5% rate you will pay 1896.20 per month, and if you refinance right now, you will pay 1449.60 per month. Thats $446.5 in monthly savings. It will take about a 30 min phone call, and some paperwork, but this rate will be fixed for the life of the loan, meaning you save $446.5 every single month for 360 months. Thats $160,776. Its definitely worth a phone call and some paperwork. Howtomakeadollar is in the process of refinancing its house today, and I recommend you do the same.

There are a few caveats of course. Lets say you have already made payments on your house for 5 years, so you only have 25 years left. By refinancing you will now be back to 30 years, which means that you will be paying interest for a total of 35 years (5 already paid, plus 30 more) This means that the total interest paid over the 35 years may be higher than what you would pay on the current plan over the next 25 years. If this is the case, then I recommend refinancing down to a 20 year or a 15 year loan. This will give you an even lower interest rate, and will pay off your loan in a shorter period of time. It may not save you money every month, but you will get an even lower interest rate (probably in the low 3s), so you will be paying the same amount you currently pay, but for fewer years.

If you decide to refinance you should shop around for the lowest rate that you qualify for. All lenders that I have dealt with require the same four things, so you may as well have everything ready.
you will need:
1. A copy of your last monthly mortgage statement
2. W2 forms from 2009 and 2008
3. Proof that the house is insured
4. Two recent pay stubs
I could talk for hours about the logistics of this and how to calculate your costs, but Its getting late.

Here is a helpful mortgage calculator that lets you experiment with interest rates

Happy Birthday Liban!

2010-07-08T23:27:00.000-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIBAN! Congratulations... your friend Andrew likes you so much he has dedicated this website to you for the entire day in celebration of your birth. He was so thoughtful that he hired a group of professional writers to write you a poem just for you to celebrate your birthday. Hope you enjoy!

Happy birthday to the greatest Ethiopain I know
I am glad you are my friend and not my foe
I hope you have a wonderful day
Maybe you'll even get a new duvet

It's sad that you moved away
hope your having fun in sunny CA
It seems like yesterday we were playing pool
and hanging out in the hallways at school

I am glad that we are friends
even one day when we have to wear depends
You are so kind and fun
don't worry, this poem is almost done

Thank you for being my bud
all of the ladies think you're a stud
Eat a lot of yummy cake
and maybe even go for a swim in the lake

This blog is also featured on www.todayisjustforyou.com
Would you like to SHOW YOUR LOVE?

Make money by finding treasure!

2010-07-08T06:00:00.000-04:00

Howtomakeadollar is ecstatic to announce we have entered into a new world. A world of hope, excitement, mystery, and fulfillment all rolled into a nice little package wrapped in rainbow colored bacon! The wold of Treasure Hunting!

Howtomakeadollar is a proud owner of a brand new Bounty Hunter Quick Draw 2! This exquisite metal detector is the key to our future fortune.

People loose things all of the time. That is a scientifically proven fact. Everyone reading this has lost something in their life time. Most likely it is something of value. The best way to measure the value of something is based on its metal content. The more metal something is made out of, the more valuable it is. Also a scientific fact. And the best way to find lost metal is by using a metal detector!

Howtomakeadollar is also proud to announce that we did not go into debt to buy this tool of investment. This tool of investment (aka our metal detector) was purchased from funds obtained through howtomakeadollars numerous and very profitable ventures.

Howtomakeadollar is going on a special treasure hunting trip next week to an exotic tropical location to do some serious metal detecting. We will keep you updated on the treasures we uncover!

Make Money Solving Math Problems

2010-07-07T06:03:00.003-04:00

Have you ever heard of Grigory Perelman? He's an unemployed Russian guy who supposedly solved a math problem called the "Poincare Conjecture," and was offered a one million dollar reward for doing so. I don't know who the people are who offered this money. I assume they are extremely rich people who have nothing better to do. But the story doesn't end there. No. This supposed genius decided he didn't want the million dollar prize, and has refused to accept it.

Ok, well, he's a wealthy guy who decided to pass the money to some charity right? Well, no. Actually he lives on welfare in a tiny apartment in St. Petersburg with his elderly mom, and hasn't had a job in several years. Also, he looks like a homeless serial killer.

This man is a genius

The Poincare Conjecture is a somewhat difficult math problem dreamed up by a crazy guy named Poincare back in 1904, before calculators were invented, and before anybody found out that math was important. A few people tried to solve it, but they all got busy with family responsibilities and fixing mowers and stuff, and after a while everybody more or less forgot about Poincare and his conjecture. So for 99 years the whole thing was forgotten. Then, in 2003, Grigory Perelman posted a solution on the Internet. It took mathematicians seven years to resolve his solution and verify that it was correct. Then, in early 2010, they announced that he would be given the million dollar prize.

For the past several months he has been "thinking about it," and just now decided that he doesn't want it. This does not seem like a genius move.

But it does open a door for anyone who likes doing math. I don't know what they are going to do with this prize money. My guess, since the whole thing seems to be happening in Russia, is that the government will come and get him and nobody will ever see him or the money again, and eventually he will build a nuclear reactor. So this money is a lost cause.

However, there are other math problems out there that no one has solved yet, and which have serious money associated with them. I spent several years studying math in high school, so I am a world class mathematician. There is a wikipedia page that lists six unsolved problems that have million dollar prizes attached. The way I see it, I could probably solve all six of these in a few hours, but I would like to partner with another skilled mathematician just in case I run into trouble with the train that left Chicago at 4:00 pm. I always have trouble with those train problems, and I assume, since these problems are hard, that they include LOTS of trains. I will gladly split the money with you 60/40.

If you are a world class mathematician, and would like to partner with me to solve these problems, please email me, and we will work out a time to get together. Tuesdays are usually good. I hope we don't need to show our work.

Start a Business Selling Toads

2010-07-06T06:30:00.005-04:00

One of the founding principles of Howtomakeadollar is that any time you can get something for free, you should get as much of it as possible, no matter what it is. This is different from hoarding because hoarders take stuff and keep it, while we take stuff and sell it.

I was thinking of this the other day while I was out hiking and saw like 50 toads. I don't know what the market is like for toads nowadays. I suspect it is fairly flat, but a flat market is still a market, and toads are free. So you may as well wrangle a bunch of them together and try to sell them off. A good rule of thumb is that if someone offers you 50 of something for free, then there has to be a way to make money off it. It doesn't really matter what it is. 50 of anything is a good deal.

Toads: Somewhere in the world there is a person who wants one

I'm sure there is some sort of National Toad Enthusiasts Coalition or toad collectors group out there that would love to buy toads off you. Let me check. Yep. After a quick scan of the Internet I have found this to be true. There is a group called "Save the Toads" here: http://www.savethetoads.com/, and there is also a group called "Stop the toads" http://www.stopthetoad.org.au/. Both of these groups appear to be legitimate, and either one would be a good place to start hawking your toads. The first group would pay you not to kill them, and the second group seems willing to pay you to kill them. This is a perfect storm for a bidding war. All you need is a bunch of toads. Let me explain how to get them.

I did not stop to collect the toads I encountered because I was going hiking and had not brought a proper toad receptacle with me. However, if you want to pursue this opportunity, I will tell you how to do it. First, I was hiking a trail in New Hampshire known as the Pemigewassett Loop, so you will need to go there if you want toads. Secondly, you should know that the Pemi Loop is considered to be the 2nd most difficult day hike in North America. It is about 32 miles, and climbs 11 mountains, so its not going to be easy. But it is worth it because of all the toads you can get.

All you need to do is hike the loop and bring a large bag or box or something. Everytime you find a toad just grab it and drop it in the bag. I promise you will see at least 50 of them if you do this whole trail. After that its just a matter of finding a buyer. Even if you sell all 50 of them for two cents each, you still make a dollar, and I think a two cent toad is a great deal.

I've even thought of a few selling points for to make.
1. Toads are immortal. On my hike, I accidentally stepped on one, but it didn't die. It just hopped away. A few years ago I ran one over with a mower, and it hopped out the other side totally fine. (seriously). No blood, no guts, no sign of any trauma. This is because toads, like Elvis, never actually die. If this fact doesn't get you a toad sale, I don't know what will. Toads are immortal and indestructible.
2. Toads eat lots of insects. If you get toads, you will never get an ant or termite problem. Just get a bunch of toads and let them roam freely around your house. I recommend at least five toads per room. You will probably need to keep your rooms dark and damp at all times, and maybe get some rotten logs, because that is what toads like.

Howtomakeadollar was right!

2010-07-05T01:14:00.000-04:00

About a month ago Howtomakeadollar published a groundbreaking idea* in a blog titled "Large Pool of Crude Oil Available on First Come First Serve Basis." If you have not read this blog, you need to go read it right now, because of how groundbreakingly groundbreaking it was.

*Howtomakeadollar publishes groundbreaking ideas every single day

Ok, so I assume you've gone over and read that blog now. Its a good idea right? Just go out and start collecting the oil. Its floating right there on the surface, available to anyone, so we suggested going out in a boat and filling up buckets with oil. We also suggested getting extremely large boats and filling them up.

Well, thats exactly what a bunch of people are doing now. In fact, an enormous ship called an oil skimmer has just been released into the Gulf of Mexico. It is almost four football fields long, and is capable of collecting 500,000 gallons per day. This is exactly what Howtomakeadollar suggested on May 16, 2010 (50 days ago). If some guy had followed our advice then, the big skimmer could have sucked up approximately 25,000,000 gallons by now.

Now, this is crude oil and you will get a lot of seawater in the skimmer, so lets assume that after the water is removed and the oil is refined, that there would only be about 5,000,000 gallons of actual oil left over. At $2.50 per gallon of gas, you would make $12,500,000. Aside from that, you could feel good about yourself for saving a bunch of manatees and mermaids and other happy sea creatures. Of course, while sucking 500,000 gallons per day, you would probably suck up a lot of them too, but there is nothing you can do about that.

You can see a video about this skimmer here: http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/world-s-largest-oil-skimmer-positions-in-gulf-20657689

How to make money on Fourth of July

2010-07-04T08:30:00.003-04:00

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!

Fourth of July is a time to celebrate our countries independence... but most importantly, like all other holidays, it is a great time to make money!

Howtomakeadollar has determined taking advantage of peoples emotions is a great way to make money. To take it a step further, an even better way to make money is to take advantage of children's emotions.

Step by step plan for making money on Fourth of July by taking advantage of children's emotions:
1. Celebrate 4th of July in the United States*,**,***

2. Go to a place where there is a large group of people and fireworks

3. Find a group of kids playing with sparklers

4. Inform the happy children that the sparklers they are using are a fire hazard that causes over 170 deaths per year (completely made up). Ask them if they are okay with knowingly contributing to these deaths.

5. Inform the children that sparklers contain potassium nitrate, dextrin, sulfur, and charcoal all known components that are scientifically proven to contribute to global warming. Ask them if they like to make mother earth cry. Also ask them if they are okay with killing all of the polar bears in the world. Also ask them if they are okay with the fact that if they continue to burn their sparklers every fourth of July the earth will be destroyed in exactly 7.5 years.

6. Inform the children that the fumes from the sparklers is the leading cause of lung cancer. Ask them if they are okay with slowly killing everyone around them.

7. Continue to tell the children how dangerous, irresponsible, and harmful to the environment their sparklers are. Continue this process until at least 63% of the children are in tears.

8. At this point tell the children you are are a member of EAACUS (Ethical Adults Against Children Using Sparklers)**** and you need to confiscate the remaining sparklers and they must pay the $.50 sparkler reform tax for each sparkler they have burned.

9. Most likely all of the children will run to their parents, get all of the extra sparklers and money and hurry back to give them to you.

10. Thank the children for doing the right thing and assure them their grandchildren will thank them for making the right decision.

11. Take the sparklers to the other side of the large group of people celebrating their independence and sell the sparklers to a group of underprivileged-non-sparkler-wielding children.

*The plan can be carried out in other countries on other days besides 4th of July, but may not be as profitable.

**4th of July may not be celebrated anymore in a couple of years, so take advantage of it while you can.

***Once 4th of July is outlawed you can adapt the plan in the UK to Guy Fawks Night on November 5th

****Along with our Ride Shotgun for Life cards, howtomakeadollar sells EAACUS cards. Having an EAACUS card will definitely make your story more believable.

Make Money by Being a Wardrobe Consultant

2010-07-03T06:48:00.000-04:00

Today I saw one of those public bulletin boards where people can advertise various things like lost pets, businesses, and whatnot, and I found a business card for a wardrobe consulting business. I have heard of wardrobe consultants, but I'm a little bit unclear about what exactly they do, and who pays them. Nonetheless, I am absolutely certain that this is a high paying and important job. Why? Because the word "Consultant" is a prominent part of the business name. I mean, what if the person was just a wardrobe? I would never even think of hiring them. But a consultant? Well, thats a totally different thing that I would never think to hire.

Like I said, I don't really know what exactly a wardrobe consultant does, nor do I have any desire to hire one. My wardrobe, such as it is, does not need any consultations. If I did hire a wardrobe consultant, probably the first thing they would say is "you need more socks and all your t-shirts are stupid." So like I said, I'm not really the kind of guy who is likely to hire a wardrobe consultant.

But that doesn't mean wardrobe consulting is a bad idea. On the contrary, I think its a great idea that you, or someone else, other than me, should do. I imagine it is pretty easy. Just show up and ask to see your client's wardrobe. Most people, if they are like me, will say "Do you mean the closet?" If they say this, you should inform them that you are not a closet consultant, and walk away. Closet consulting is beneath you, and it is a rather ambiguous job title. Does it mean that you are a consultant, but only in secret, and you don't want anyone to know about it?

Somewhere in there you should get paid handsomely.

Make money by providing a quality product

2010-07-02T09:01:00.000-04:00

Howtomakeadollar is not always the most ethical in our business practices and the claims we make. But that's okay, because we have an Official Fact Check Guy and an Official Accountant to keep us straight (i.e. take the blame for all of our unscrupulous business practices). If you are trying to be a good business person; however, howtomakeadollar feels it is important to sell a quality product. Selling a quality product is a better business practice than selling a poor quality product. Its true.

Howtomakeadollar is proud to announce that we create quality products! We have a lot of people who hate us (you can see a list of them on the right column of our blog)... but we also have several people who like us because we produce a quality product. The quality product I am referring to is our custom laptop sleeve protector. Specifically our superman laptop sleeve protectors.

Here are some of the rave reviews...

"It's AWESOME! Thanks." - Dustin B.

"This product was made for my husband and he is a very hard man to shop for...he is all about functionality. I thought the Superman logo would be cute since he was a fan of the comics as a child. I gave him the gift when he started a new job and he really liked it. He uses it allll the time and has made comments about how perfect it is in size. I didn't know it at the time but he was planning on investing in an expensive one from a computer store. Now he has one with sentimental value and is also completely functional." -Leila H.

"Hands down the coolest think I have ever seen in my entire life!" -Andrew G.

So if you want to be successful selling a product, the key is to make a good product. If you would like to order your own super high quality custom laptop sleeve protector, email us and we will start on it as soon as possible. Please note that we currently have a slight backlog from all of our custom ipad sleeve protector orders that are coming in. But your order is extremely important to us and will be processed in the order it was received.

Looking for good auto insurance quotes?

2010-07-01T09:11:00.001-04:00

The auto insurance industry is a good business model. Howtomakeadollar does not currently have the funds or resources at our disposal to start an auto insurance company. We do however have the ability to refer you to a website that gives you information about auto insurance. Check out this website on auto insurance.

http://www.automobileinsurance.me/go/click.php?tid=448655 is a website that offers CHEAP, INEXPENSIVE, and AFFORDABLE vehicle insurance quotes. The autoinsurance.me website has a lot of useful information about all of the complex terminology related to obtaining auto insurance. The autoinsurance.me website also has a great overview of all of the basic information you need about autoinsurance.

So, if you are looking for a website that will give you an affordable insurance quote... autoinsurance.me is the place to go. They also have a good summary of all of the following car insurance companies: Allstate, progressive, Geico, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, and State Farm. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

This blog is another in our blogsvertise posts. This blog post is supported by advertising that is on a per click basis. Enjoy. We will keep you updated as to how our blogsvertise experience turns out and if we recommend this method as a viable option on getting money for blogging from sources other then Google's AdSense.

The Future is Now: Flying Cars Have Been Invented

2010-06-30T07:00:00.003-04:00

Howtomakeadollar has been a staunch advocate of the future for a long time, but I have to admit that lately we have been getting a little bit impatient. The future is always being put off until tomorrow or next year, and after a while, you tend to get a little bit jaded about the whole thing. So if, like us, you have been waiting for the future for your entire life, then you will be excited to learn that it has finally arrived.

I'm referring, or course, to the invention of a flying car. People have been talking about flying cars since the days of horses and buggies. Of course, they always called them "flying horses and buggies," but the concept, give or take an internal combustion engine, was the same. However, despite all the talk, flying cars and flying horses have always remained elusive. Until now.

read all about the flying car at the company website: http://www.terrafugia.com/

We are living in interesting times. For thousands of years people always thought about flying cars when they thought about the future. Now what will we think about? Beats me. The end of the world must be getting close. There is no more future left to imagine.*

*except for global warming, which is always being put off to the future... But global warming is boring, so thats out. Maybe we can dream up a flying elephant or something. That might inspire people.

The flying car is called "Transition," and it is made by a company called Terrafugia. Just yesterday, June 29, 2010, it was approved in the U.S. for both air and road travel. Its wings are able to unfold electronically while the car is driving, allowing it to take off into the air straight off the highway. When it lands the wings can fold back up and it can drive down the road just like any other car, and it can park in an ordinary garage. Of course, it looks extremely goofy driving down the road, but honestly I don't think it looks much stupider than lots of other cars that people drive, and it can fly, so there.

Yep, its ugly, but at least it can fly. Now what about the rest of you?

Ok great, but how do I make a dollar off this?

There are probably lots of good ways to make money off this, but the easiest way to do it would be to change the name. The people at Terrafugia are obviously geniuses, but they have totally missed the boat on the name. Its called "Transition." What a dumb name. You've invented the flying car. The crowing moment of all of history is upon us, and you call it "Transition?" Really? That sounds like the name of menopause pill. No. You need to get a job in the branding dept. of Terrafugia and change this name now. You will sell millions more of these by simply naming it "The Flying Car."

Check out http://camera-and-photo.become.com/

2010-06-29T06:00:00.007-04:00

Looking for a new CAMERA???

http://camera-and-photo.become.com/ is a website for finding out information about cameras and photography gear. The site allows you to shop conveniently online, compare prices of products you are interested in, and ultimately save you money.

Howtomakeadollar believes that pictures are a key component of a successful blog. For years howtomakeadollar has been trying to increase the quality of our pictures. We have tried almost everything in an attempt to take a good picture. It was not until we realized we were not using a good camera. After we bought a digital SLR our pictures turned out amazing. They have a really cool feature called "automatic." The automatic feature does all of the work for you. You point the camera at what you want to take a picture of and click the button. The camera does the rest. It's that simple. Well, maybe its not that simple... but this site has all the information you need to help you find the camera that is right for you. Remember... the more expensive, the better picture it will take.

http://camera-and-photo.become.com/ helps you to capture your life on film. Well, you can choose either on film or digitally. Howtomakeadollar recommends digitally. So there you have it. Go check out the website and buy cameras. You will be happy you did.

This blog entry is our first blogsvertise entry. Hopefully letting you know about this website to buy cameras and camera gear will earn us some money!

Make money playing the circle game!

2010-06-28T06:00:00.000-04:00

Most people have either played or heard of the circle game. Usually this game is an immature game played by middle schoolers or freshman in high school. According to the urban dictionary, the circle game is "a game of peripheral vision, trickery and motor skills." The rules of the game are quite simple. Make a circle with your index finger and thumb like so:

Get someone to look at the circle. Punch the person that looks at it in the arm. Since howtomakeadollar is all about making money and not all about punching people, we suggest you change the rules of the game. Make the unsuspecting person pay you a dollar each time they look at your hand or have them take you out to lunch after they look at your hand a certain number of times.

Note: make sure you are good at the game, otherwise you may have to take someone out to lunch or pay them a lot of money.

There is also a circlegame.org website. The website has not been updated since 2005. 2005 was about the end of the circle game craze. So, its time to bring it back and make some money doing it!

Make Money by Selling Pieces of Junk

2010-06-27T19:26:00.004-04:00

A few days ago the Red Cross came to my work and I donated blood because I am a moderately good person. When you are donating blood, they usually give you a little heart-shaped squeezy toy to hold in your hand. They tell you to squeeze the thing every 10 seconds. This helps keep your blood flowing while you donate. I can usually squeeze out a pint of blood in about 30 seconds. MY HEART IS STRONG AND FILLED WITH COURAGE. But for other slow-blooded people I suppose the little heart toy helps. They don't let you keep the heart-shaped squeezy toy either. After you are done giving blood they take it away and send you on yours.

Well, the other day when I gave blood, they gave me a little five inch piece of PVC pipe to squeeze. I asked the nurse what happened to all the little squeezy hearts and she told me they "ran out." A guy donating near me was given a Bic pen to squeeze. Times are tough at the Red Cross. I can only presume that they were forced to sell off their heart shaped squeeze toys. I would rate the PVC squeezing experience as about a 5. Squeezing a PVC pipe is simply not as satisfying as squeezing a squeezy toy. I would have thought that squeezing a pen would be more fun because of all the clicking you could do, but it turned out that is was just a regular pen, not one of those clickable pens. So it seems that the Red Cross has been reduced to handing out old pens and pieces of discarded plumbing. They have fallen on bad times, and are in need of various household items that can be held in the palm of your hand.

All this talk about pens and pipes makes Howtomakeadollar want to donate blood

Now, I'm not saying that you will get paid very much money for your childhood rock collection or your old broken cell phone, but I am saying that these items are exactly what the Red Cross needs right now, and you probably aren't going to find anyone else who needs them. You need to strike while the iron is hot!

If you do not have any such items, Howtomakeadollar will gladly sell a bunch of them to you.

Ride Shotgun for Life!

2010-06-26T06:12:00.018-04:00

Howtomakeadollar is pleased to announce yet another groundbreaking and exciting product. We are now offering, for a limited time, the nation's only official Shotgun Riding Pass. With this pass in your pocket you can always ride shotgun in any car, any time. It is the only pass that is officially endorsed and recognized by the United States Federal Bureau of Motor Vehicle Passengers.

Your card is printed on high quality glossy card stock, with an official U.S. government seal printed on the bottom left, verifying that the cardholder is officially licensed to ride shotgun anytime he or she enters a motor vehicle.

Howtomakeadollar's partnership with the Federal Bureau of Motor Vehicle Passengers is strictly regulated, and there is only a limited number of these cards available, so we cannot guarantee your order will be met unless you order immediately. Each card is one dollar, but orders of five or more will receive an additional five cards for free. YOU CANNOT BEAT A 10 FOR $5 DEAL!

Howtomakeadollar recommends buying as many cards as you can get, because the supply is low, and demand is expected to be extremely high. Multiple orders have already come in from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland (really). Once they are gone there will be none left. You can keep one for yourself and give another to your spouse for his/her birthday. Nothing says "I love you" more than a lifetime guarantee in the passenger seat. This is like telling your special someone that you never want to ride with anyone else.

If you get the 10 for $5 deal, this will leave you with eight cards left over that you can give to friends (this will make you all the more popular) or sell on Ebay. Remember, low supply equals high prices, so its quite likely that you would get your money right back, with a little profit on the side.

ORDER HERE!!!

What to do when you are rich and powerful

2010-06-25T06:00:00.005-04:00

Lots of people want to be millionaires right? But what do they do when they make their millions? They buy cookie cutter McMansions and few nice cars, and they play golf a lot. Howtomakeadollar thinks this is boring. We have lots of other recommendations, but today we will be focusing on pranks. Anyone can prank his friends, but a rich person can afford to prank them in ways that the rest of us can only dream of. Here are a few ideas.

1. The "Dude, Where's My House?" missing house prank: You know that prank where you come out to the parking lot to get in your car, but your car is gone because a bunch of your friends moved it? Usually they moved it to some annoying place like Bed Bath & Beyond. Thats just a tip for you in case you haven't found yours yet. Anyway, if you are rich you could take this classic prank up to a higher notch: Move their house. Wait until they go away for a while, then hire a crew of house movers, and have them tow your friend's house out to the middle of a lake or a desert somewhere. When your friend comes back he will be in for a big surprise. He will never see it coming, and you can all share a good laugh about it later.

2. The champagne prank. You know that prank where you come home and somebody has filled up thousands of little pixie cups full of water and covered the entire floor and every flat surface in your house with them? Well, if you are rich you can do this same prank, only fill all the cups up with champagne instead of water. This doesn't really add anything significant to the prank, but you should do it anyway since you're rich.

3. The sweepstakes prank. I'm sure you've heard about those Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes that occasionally show up at people's houses and pay out big prize money. Right? Well, this is a good setup for a prank you could do. Just hire somebody to show up at your friend's house and tell him he's won a million dollars from a sweepstake. Make sure the guy you hire is really convincing, and give him an actual check for one million dollars to give your friend. Your friend will be ecstatic and will call up everyone and tell them he won big in the sweepstakes. But the joke is on him because it wasn't really a sweepstake! It was just you pretending to be a sweepstake. He will never live this one down.

4. The stock market prank. If you are rich enough, you can buy a controlling interest in a large corporation. Once you do this, you can then sell all your stocks on the open market for like ten cents each. This will cause a dramatic crash on the company. If you bought a large enough company, such as Wal-Mart or Google, it could even cause the entire stock market to crash for a day or two. This would be a hilarious prank and would probably make international news. The whole world would find out about your prank and they would all just shake their heads and laugh. "What a funny guy," they would say. If you do this prank, try to let us know ahead of time so we can buy all the cheap stocks that you dump off.

Blogsvertise?

2010-06-24T06:16:00.006-04:00

Ever since howtomakeadollar was blacklisted from Google's Adsense... we have been searching for an alternative source of advertising revenue. There doesn't really seem to be much out there besides Google Adsense. The moral of the story is: do not get blacklisted by Adsense. But for those who have been rejected by Adsense there appears to be a couple of additional options. We are in the process of testing them out.

The first alternative option to Adsense is Blogsvertise. Blogsvertise (yes, that is really their name) is a website that you can sign up for and they will give you "assignments." These assignments are to write a review of whatever item, website, or service they provide you with. You write a blog about the item assigned to you, Blogsvertise approves your blog, post the blog, and they pay you. Supposedly the payout is between $5 and $15 per blog post. Not too bad considering we usually blog for free. Unless it is for our PromoteME or SHOW YOUR LOVE features.

Keep your eyes open for our Blogsvertise featured blogs! We have also read on the "internet" that Blogsvertise is a huge scam. But since we are experts in ethical grey areas and unsubstantiated claims... we should probably fit in well with the Blogsvertise crew.

Rainbow Bacon

2010-06-23T06:58:00.002-04:00

A few days ago we said that the world's best business idea is bacon. You can read about that here. Well it seems that some guy has taken our advice and is doing some groundbreaking things with bacon. Truly groundbreaking. Bacon, I'm sure you know, has remained fundamentally the same for thousands of years. UNTIL NOW.

Rainbow Bacon. Look upon it you mighty ones and despair, for great is its splendor and many are its colors.

Yes, Bacon Today* has reported a new development in bacon technology. A truly revolutionary development. It is called Rainbow Bacon. It is bacon in many colors. It is wholesome goodness in rainbow format. It is crunchy, chewy, salty meat candy with artificial coloring, and I presume that the green strips are good for you. Now if he would only get a big van full of bacon and drive around like an ice cream truck.

*Not a joke. Bacon Today is a real website. Their slogan is "Daily updates on the world of sweet, sweet bacon."

Make money by making those rubber strips that go around your refrigerator door

2010-06-22T06:46:00.004-04:00

You know what that little rubber liner thingee that goes around your refrigerator door is called? Its called a gasket. As in the sentence "Jack has a gasket." You want to know what it does? It makes your refrigerator work. Without that rubber gasket in there the door will not shut, and all the little cold particles that make stuff get cold will come tumbling out all over the place. Not only that, but in the absence of all the little cold particles, little hot particles will appear, transforming your fridge into a 70 degree box of lukewarm leftovers that stink up the whole kitchen. This is how refrigerators work.

Here is a picture of some guy pointing at a refrigerator gasket

Even if you do have a gasket, but the gasket has a tear in it from the time you slammed it on a cat or maybe it just got a tear for ABSOLUTELY NO STINKING REASON WHATSOEVER. Well, in that case, the fridge will just run all day long, and all the little cold particles will all sneak right out that little tear and invite all the hot particles in. Not only that, but a whole bunch of condensation will accumulate all over the place and drip on the floor under the fridge. Condensation is a kind of water that appears for no good reason in places that water has no business being and makes stuff all wet that shouldn't get wet. Condensation that comes out of your fridge will usually smell like sweet and sour sauce and eggs. It will accumulate under the fridge and bond with all the little things that live under your fridge. If you have never rolled your fridge out to see what was under it, you need to do so right now. You will be astonished and terrified, like those guys who chase tornados around Kansas and then turn around and run away screaming like little girls as soon as they find one. After hours of building up under there, it will suddenly start to gush out from under the fridge like a busted oil rig, only smellier and with mouse turds floating in it. If you aren't paying attention you will step in it barefoot and it will be cold and you will make a little "yip" noise that makes you sound like a girl. If you are a girl you will make the same noise and then yell at the nearest man to come over and fix it.

Well, what do you do then? You go to Home Depot. Do not go to Lowes. Lowes is the worst place you could ever go. Death Valley is a lot like Lowes, only there aren't little birds flying around in Death Vally taking dumps on the merchandise, and there are no teenage girls with pink nose piercings and dyed black hair working in customer service. Also, its called Death Valley, so you know what you are getting into when you go there.

So, if you go to Home Depot, they will give you a phone number that you can call. You call that number, and some guy will ask you what the number on your fridge door is. You probably never noticed this number before, but there is a big number right on the inside of your door. It doesn't make any difference what brand your fridge is. It doesn't make any difference where you bought it. Maybe its an out-of-business off-brand made in the Weimar Republic by a bunch of Prussian serfs. Maybe you found it in a landfill outside of Vladivostok. Doesn't make any difference. That number will be there, and the guy at the phone number will have a brand new gasket on hand, sized exactly for your made-up refrigerator. He will mail it to you for $100.

He can charge any amount he wants to because he is the only guy in the world who is in the aftermarket refrigerator gasket business. When his first grade teacher asked the class what they wanted to do when they grew up, everyone said they wanted to be athletes and pilots and CIA agents. Not this guy. This guy said he wanted to get into the refrigerator gasket industry. He has no competition, he goes on vacation whenever he wants, and he has a summer home in Vale. His wife is a Tahitian masseuse. He has panda bacon delivered to his house for breakfast.

Make money by emailing Steve Jobs

2010-06-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

Supposedly Steve Jobs replies to emails from regular-average-non-important people. See the article here. Since howtomakeadollar is regular, average, and non-important we thought we would give it a try.

Step by Step plan:
Step 1: Get married to a cute wife (your wife does not necessarily have to be cute, but it will help in Step 2)
Step 2: Have cute kids
Step 3: Buy expensive camera
Step 4: Set camera to automatic
Step 5: Take picture of above mentioned cute kids holding an ipad
Step 6: Have cute wife edit picture

Step 7: Email a copy of the cute picture to Steve Jobs. Supposedly Steve Jobs email address is sjobs@apple.com
Step 8: Steve Jobs will love the picture so much and think it is the cutest picture he has ever seen and offer you $578,922.32 for the rights to the picture

cute ipad picture‏

Sent:

Fri 6/18/10 11:12 PM

To:

sjobs@apple.com

	1 attachment
	IPad.jpg (2.6 MB)

Steve,

I thought you might like the picture of my children enjoying an ipad. Let me know if you would like to use the picture in an advertising campaign.

Thanks,

We will keep you updated on Steve's response

Happy Father's Day Benjamin!

2010-06-20T00:01:00.001-04:00

Happy Father's Day Benjamin! Your daughter Amity loves you so much she has dedicated this blog to you for the entire day!

Daddy you are so sweet

I love it when you tickle my feet

I am glad that you are a big fan of meat

That is truly a wonderful feat

I love it when you sing to me

It makes me feel so happy and free

I am only one... not three

Who is the best father? you are he

I love you so much in every way

I don't really have too much more to say

I know I will always be your number one

even when you have a son

Happy Father's day daddy! I love you so very much! Mommy and I appreciate you so much and everything you do for our family. Thanks for being so cool!

WE LOVE YOU DADDY!

This blog is also featured on www.todayisjustforyou.com

Would you like to SHOW YOUR LOVE?

Make $5 in two weeks with Swag Bucks!

2010-06-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

About two weeks ago we blogged about how to make money surfing the web using Swag Bucks. In the two weeks we have been using swagbucks we have made $5. That doesn't really seem like a lot... but its $5 more than we had before. And it was for doing something we were already doing in the first place.

If you would like to make money surfing the internet... check it out...

SWAG BUCKS!