2009 Looking Back: The Best Business Ideas Ever

Howtomakeadollar is a very well established, venerable institution that has existed since the early days of the republic. We were founded by the esteemed and honorable Dr. Andrew Benjamin Tyler in 1759 in Hampton, New Hampshire. Although our founder is still alive and quite vigorous, regular maintenance of this website passed into the hands of his successors back in 1952. Now, as the end of 2009 approaches (the 250th anniversary of the business), he has asked us to commemorate the best, worst, and most ethical ideas he has ever come up with.

Most Ethical Ideas

1. Sal's Vacation Army. It was part of our Christmas moneymaking series, and turned out to be highly profitable.

2. Bottled Bog Water: Not only is it a cutting edge business model, its also healthy!

3. Moneymaking Opportunities for Babies. Everyone has a baby or two, very few profit from them

4. Make money with a copy machine: Literally!

5. Make Money Giving Terrorists What They Deserve Very ethical, very profitable, and good for national security

6. Make Money off the Nigerian Royal Family Make easy money transferring international bank accounts while helping a down-on-his-luck Nigerian guy. What's more ethical than that?

2009 Worst Ideas Ever

1. Make Money by Building an Island Out of Garbage. In principle we thought this would be a good one, but we were late to the party. It turns out there is already a gigantic garbage island in the Pacific Ocean, and barges were harder to find than we anticipated.

2. If I had a Dime Everytime I Heard That... The key word for why this failed is "if." Bottom line, people don't pay up.

3. Make Money by Cleaning Your Car This is another one of those "works in principle, not in practice" ideas

4. Make Money by Selling Snow: This idea may work once global warming gets back on track, but the day we posted this idea the East Coast got hit by a blizzard. High supply = no profit.

5. Make Money on Black Friday: Reason it failed: We didn't think of it until the Sunday after Black Friday. Woops!

2009 Best Business Ideas Ever

10. Make Six Dollars by Fixing My Bathroom Window for Me. This one has yet to make any money for anyone, but I really need someone to do it. Please help.

9. Give a Penny, Take a Penny We like this one because its easy and free. 

8. Free Money: This one is pretty much the same as Give a Penny Take a Penny, but with higher profit margins. Whats not to like?

7. Make Money By Cleaning Snow Off Cars: Only downside to this is that ShamWows get kind of weird when they freeze

6. Gift Cards Are a Scam: Not exactly a business, but its a good point to be made

5. Save Money by Not Buying a Swimming Pool: Again, not an actual business, but you can save thousands this way

4. Make Money by Not Farming: Easiest money you'll ever make

3. Start a Blog: We've made just over six dollars on this blog. Thats six times more than what we expected.

2. Collect Nickels: Impossible to lose money, high chance of gaining

1. Get a Promotion and a Raise: Yep, I got promoted the day after I posted this. It works.

Check back tomorrow for a (relatively) serious post about starting a microbusiness in 2010

Give a Penny, Take a Penny

At most stores and restaurants, they have an amazing thing in front of the cash register... Free Money!  They usually call it "give a penny, take a penny."  Here's the business plan: Take a Penny!  Thats it, just take a penny.  Do it a couple of times and you'll have a dollar.  If you have a little kid, get them to take a penny as well.  No one gets mad at cute little kids and you'll get a dollar twice as fast.  If they didn't want people to take the pennies they wouldn't tell you to "take a penny."  Sometimes you can get lucky and even find a nickel. 

Promote Your Blog

Now that you've started a successful blog (click here to see how) ... its time to promote it and get more people to enjoy your inspirational writings.  Using the power of the internet Al Gore has so graciously provided us with, you can promote your site to millions of people.  Facebook and twitter are two great sites to help connect people to your blog.  And the great thing is... they're free!  Nothing better than free things!  Nobody is on Myspace anymore, so just skip that one.  Set up an account with the same name as your blog and start asking people to join your group.  If you haven't already... you can follow us on twitter and facebook.

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/how2makeadollar
Join our group on Facebook:   http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=231239415515

How to Make Money By Helping the Nigerian Royal Family Transfer Funds to the U.S.

Business Description: Many members of the royal family in Nigeria are attempting to transfer large sums of money into bank accounts in the U.S. It is believed that over a million direct relatives of the king are currently trying to do this. For some reason they do not know how to use traditional banking services for these account transfers. Instead they choose to go to outrageous lengths in order to transfer their money. Unfortunately, they have poor grammar, and have strange names such as Dr. H. Pinkus Hansen C. T. Dinkus Doubletree Gore-tex IV. This forces them to go through the complicated and unnecessary procedure of contacting complete strangers to ask for help. Their problems are further aggravated by the fact that everyone they have ever met has recently died in a car accident.

How it Works: If Dr. Gore-tex or one of his associates contacts you and asks you to help him transfer his money, he will compensate you by paying you a commission on the total amount that is transferred. This commission is usually about 10%, and comes to several million U.S. dollars. I recommend haggling over this and asking for at least 15%, since he is in such a desperate situation. I always recommend haggling.

Once you've agreed on a price, all you have to do is provide him with your social security number, bank account number and check routing numbers. He takes care of the rest.

Howtomakeadollar is an extremely trustworthy entity, and has been contacted by several members of the royal household over the years. They trust us inherently, and have sent us many highly important and confidential emails. However, we spend too much time developing this informative website, and are unable to keep up with the high volume of royal bank account transfers. For this reason, Howtomakeadollar is offering a limited opportunity to our loyal reader.

That's right. We will forward these emails to you for just one dollar. This will enable you to work directly with the Nigerian Royal Household on our highly influential recommendation. This is a limited-time reader appreciation offer that we are making to our loyal and trustworthy reader.

How to Make Six Dollars By Fixing My Bathroom Window

Business Plan: You fix my bathroom window, I pay you.

Business Description: The bathroom on the third floor of my house has a window. The frame of this window is rotted, and does not allow the window to close properly. This allows cold air to come in, as well as occasional insects. If you can fix it, I'll give you ten dollars. I estimate that you will need to buy about four dollars worth of lumber for this job. That will give you a $6 profit in addition to the rotted wood, which I will let you keep as a reader appreciation gift. You will also need a 40 foot ladder because the rotted frame is inaccessible from the inside of the house, and gloves because it is really cold today. I estimate that it will take you about an hour, which comes to $6 an hour.  Not bad. Many people in Zimbabwe will not make six dollars in a full year. Six dollars can buy approximately 60 candy canes in the week after Christmas, or one peep hole. You could also photocopy it. You can use the rotted wood to beat up terrorists, or animals, or to expand your island. Basically, you are robbing me blind with this business opportunity, but I'm a nice guy.

How to Save Money By Not Buying a Swimming Pool

How it works: Swimming pools are very expensive to build and maintain. You can avoid these fees by simply not buying a pool in the first place. Its that easy.

Related Money Saving Ideas: Don't buy a second house, Don't Take Exotic Vacations

How To Make Money At Christmastime (Supplemented)

A few more ways to make money around Christmas:

1.  Sal's vacation Army
This idea involves tapping into the Pavlovian urge to toss change into a red bucket at the sound of a bell around Christmastime.

1.  Dress up as Santa
2.  Buy a red cauldron (a bucket may work, but for best results use a cauldron, preferably with hanger)
3.  Buy a bell
4.  Position yourself outside of a popular store with said cauldron and bell.  You may wish to seek out a different entrance than the Salvation Army volunteer who is most likely stationed at the main entrance.
5.  Ring the bell vigorously.  Most people should not notice that you are not affiliated with Salvation Army in any way, but just in case, you could attach a sign to your cauldron that says "For Sal's vacation Army", with the "S" and "Army" in larger font.  This may fool the rest.
6.  Learn to live with the guilt.

2.  Post-Christmas Resale
You have most likely received a moderate to above-moderate amount of free things recently.  Some people call them gifts.  I like to think of them as opportunities to make money.  Immediately sell all of these "gifts" on ebay for maximum profit.

3.  Recycled Wrapping Paper
There is a segment of the population that actively looks to purchase things that are recycled, and another segment that loves finding bargains on Christmas items after Christmas.  Where these two segments intersect, you can find a profit.
1. Save a few empty cardboard wrapping paper rolls.
2. Gently unwrap any gifts you receive and keep the wrapping paper.  To maximize the amount of reusable paper, you could also offer (demand) to unwrap everyone else's gifts as well.
3.  Roll the used wrapping paper back onto the empty cardboard rolls.  You can combine different sizes and types of wrapping paper onto the same roll.  Secure the roll with a few rubber bands, tape, or even some used ribbon for extra flair.
4.  Sell the rolls to an environmentally conscious vendor.  Or sell them yourself from a cart outside of Target.
5.  For variation you could make a few rolls using paper that was completely trashed when the gifts were opened.  These you can sell for half price.