Summer Projects YOU can do

Well, if you're anything like me, you're in the summer, and you need money. I plan on spending lots of money when I go to England this summer on my study abroad, unfortunately, as the dollar is dying out against the pound, that is going to be difficult. It means I must either spend TONS of money, or just not buy much. I would rather have the option of spending TONS of money (wouldn't we all)

I need to come up with some projects to do, so I thought I would post some of my ideas.

1. Sell stuff on e-Bay
There are lots of things out there you can sell on e-Bay, and even more places you can find that will tell you how to do it. I am currently selling some old Yu-Gi-Oh cards I found. I bought them as a gift for my cousins, then lost them. My cousins are no longer into these cards, but other people are, and I will sell some stuff to them.
It's actually possible to make LOTS of money from projects like this: I used to make a couple hundred a week from selling Trading cards (back when I was 12ish) There's lots of money in it, but you have to do some homework. Learn the best ways to procure, repack, sell, and ship the cards. I had good suppliers (usually other sellers on e-bay selling boxes of cards) I sold the individuals that were good, shipped them in the bubble envelopes, and turned good profits. You'll also have to learn the game a little so you know which cards are good to sell, and which ones can be either trashed, given away to someone who plays, or sold in "grab bag lots" (a trick I actually created on e-Bay...they have been around in real life for some time, but I was the first to implement them with trading cards on e-Bay)

2. Mow Lawns
I will not be doing this, since my knees are bad from football, but you can! It does not have to be lawn mowing, it can be any physical labor people don't like to do. It sounds simple, but there really can be BOATLOADS of money in this. The best things you can do is first figure out what other companies in the area charge to mow the lawn; you will need to beat these prices. You will then need to decide who you would like to service. If you are mowing lawns, it will be houses near yours since you won't want to lug your lawn mower across town. If it is something with lighter equipment, you can expand more fully. You will also need to advertise. You can post on bulletin boards, send out mailers, even go door to door to tell people about your products (make sure this is all allowed before you do it) There are many opportunities out there: you can clean pools, do gardening, paint outside or inside, mow lawns, change peoples oil, anything you feel you can do well, someone will probably pay you to do. I once had a business managing other kids businesses, since I felt that was my strong point.

3. Get a plain old job
There are many good paying jobs out there that you can get. I am not one for getting jobs, since I like to be my own boss, but if you want one, here are some tips...work in a restaurant, or an office building. If you are a server, you can make BANK on tips (chili's around here, servers make about $100 a night) office buildings you will also get better wages/salary. Don't work somewhere like a grocery store, you make minimum wage with no opportunity for more.

4. Steal it
Just kidding

5. Have a garage sale
If you are anything like me, you have old crap in your room and house that you don't use anymore because you're at college. Talk to your parents and have a garage sale. You can get others involved and make a real event. Advertise in local papers, and be prepared to sit outside all day. You can probably make a couple of hundred bucks from your old crap.

6. Sell stuff online
You can use a website like ecrater.com to create a store for free, and you can sell some of your wares online. This is similar to e-Bay, but you would simply have your own store. It's very easy to set up, and you can even buy a domain name to mask it.

7. Invest what you DO have
If you want, you can even start investing in the stock market (provided you have enough money to cover the commissions with your returns) I highly suggest doing lots of homework before you buy a stock, and for your own benefit, read up on how to invest. My dad is very involved with reading Jim Cramer and watching his show, Mad Money. He's entertaining at least, and I believe he has some good tips. My biggest tip, don't buy stuff simply at market price, set a price, otherwise you could end up selling your stock for $0.01 or buying a share for thousands. Trust me on that one. Cramer's show is on at 6pm and 11pm Eastern on Weeknights.


I hope some of these ideas either provided you with a good idea, or helped you to come up with a good idea of your own. I hope you all make lots of money this summer. Just remember, the best way to stimulate the economy is to spend the money you make. Don't spend MORE than you make, but keep that money moving through the economy.

OFFERING FREE SHOT GLASS FOR DORM-GEAR

FOR THREE DAYS ONLY!!!

I am offering a free glowing shot glass from my online store, dorm-gear.com on any purchase of $5.00 or more. All you have to do is go to my webstore, add $5.00 or more to the store, then add a Glowing Shot Glass of your choice (Red, Green, Yellow, Blue) and check out.

The coupon code to use is FREESHOT

Just check out the store, and see if there's anything you want (the glowing shot glasses are awesome)

Click Here to go to dorm-gear.com

My design on Shirt.Woot

For those of you, Shirt.Woot (a subsite of Woot.com) hosts a derby each week. Amateur's design a shirt that follows a theme, and anyone who has ever purchased a product on any Woot site (Woot, shirt.woot, and wine.woot) may vote on designs. You can vote on any shirt design. I have entered a shirt design, and would love anyone who has ever purchased anything on a woot site to vote for it.

To vote, when you go to the link, click on the thing on the top left of the shirt that says "I'd want one" Thank you all so much.

Click Here to See my Shirt Design

Also, anyone who is going to do that revolution money exchange offer I explained in the last post, I can only do it for the first 50 people who sign up by May 15th. After 50, you'll still get $25, but I won't get the $10, so I can't send you any of the money I get. They say it ends on May 15th (although it was supposed to end April 15th and they extended it one month, so maybe they'll do it again)

A Chance for ALL of you to make $30 with 2-5 minutes

I just signed up for a new website called Revolution money exchange. It is similar to Paypal, and just like Paypal, to get word out about their new website they are offering a $25 bonus to everyone who signs up.

If you sign up through my name, I get $10; if you do so, I will send you $5 of that $10 through Revolution Money Exchange. That way, I get $5, you get $30, which is more than if you just signed up normally. I think this is pretty much a win-win for everyone. If you have ANY questions, let me know.

I checked out whether or not this was a scam, and it is legit. I even did a google of "Revolution Money Exchange Scam" and it returned a couple questions about it, and there were many people assuring it was legit. It has been around for a little while now anyway.

Here is the link to click on.

Store Updated

All of my inventory is now available on my store (dorm-gear.com) I finally got it all updated, and I'm very excited, I think I can finally start some advertising. I know I'm going to put up signs around campus; I feel that will be the best advertising. If you have any ideas, I would LOVE to hear them.

I have also begun work on an access database to manage my orders, products, and inventory. As it turns out, this is a bigger project than I had expected; I guess I know less about access than I had previously thought. I finally figured out how to do some things, like automatically add one to my highest invoice number, so they are sequential, but I will not have gaps in the data. I want to build it using mostly forms, so I can have a very simple method of adding data to the database.

I think what I'll do is just take my time trying to get this system up and running, I don't think it has to be rushed, but it's also a great learning experience. It doesn't help that I'm really sick right now, so I'm not doing much of anything right now. I thought since I slept through all my classes, I would go ahead and do something a little beneficial.

Anyway, again, check the store at dorm-gear.com, I'd appreciate it.

Stay Safe!

Quick Update

After a very long time of waiting, I finally put all my new products up on the store.

dorm-gear.com

Go to see all the new fun products I have up there.

Also working on an order and inventory/customer management database. Fun huh?

I'll update more later, just wanted to throw out a quick update before I go to bed.

If you're reading this on Facebook, you can see the full blog at dormroombiz.com

Leadership Journey by Philip Morris

Well, this weekend was an incredible experience. I went with the Eli Broad scholars to a leadership journey sponsored by Philip Morris, and I must say it was much more than I had expected. First surprise of the day...we're staying at the Westin and we each get our own rooms.It was quite a nice room, with my very own king size bed, and a big plasma TV, it was quite an experience to say the least. However, the room was not the reason we went to Southfield, we went to learn about leadership, and Philip Morris really knows how to teach leadership. I'll admit I was skeptical about going on this leadership journey which was paid for mostly by cigarettes, but I feel better about it afterward.
They did not avoid the topic at all, they were very ready to talk about the issue. At one point, one of the District Managers said "Do you have any questions about the company? It can be the good stuff or the bad stuff; I don't know if you've heard...but we make cigarettes." We discussed some of the issues that they face with rising health consciousness, and what they are doing to try to sell cigarettes as responsibly as possible (I still don't think it's possible to sell cigarettes responsibly) There are a new type of smokeless cigarette called Snus that are available in Dallas I believe, that should be nice for cutting down second hand smoke.
Anyway, the journey was not about Philip Morris either, it was all about leadership. We learned different techniques and thoughts about what leadership is, and what makes a good leader. One of the people we talked about the most was Sir Shackleton; he led a journey to Antarctica to try to cross the land continent. When he got stuck in ice, they changed the plan to try to get home, instead of cross the continent. After like 2 years, and MANY risks, including riding 800 miles from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island in a tiny rescue boat (a journey that he should have gotten lost on, since there was no land in between, and therefore, no landmarks) he eventually got every single man out alive. I felt he was a good leader as far as compensating for a poor decision in the first place. One of the DM's Mark Barton felt he was a poor leader who made a bad decision, who then became a very good manager. There is a difference between a leader and a manager, he said.
We also discussed various other aspects of leadership which I won't bore you with right now, but it was really inspiring to hear some other aspects of leadership that I would not normally have thought of. The biggest aspect is that a leadership not only deals with how the leader treats the followers, but how the followers treat the leader. I just always thought a good leader knew how to lead, I didn't really think about the fact that he/she needs a good follower.
Anyway, there was MUCH more to it, but for now, that will have to do. If you want some more details, just shoot me an e-mail and I'll let you know what we talked about; it's simply too difficult to put it all into words, since it took a day and a half.