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The best way to make money is not necessarily the one you’d like to hear.
Most people don’t really like their job.
Wish they could sit on a beach all day with their frilly drink
Is the best way to make money as simple as getting a 9-5?
What about side hustling? Are you really just working yourself into a new job?
What are your goals?
Do you want to make money just to call yourself rich and count stacks?
Maybe you hate your job.
Or you just want to provide a more comfortable life for your family and not worry about paying bills.
I live in a high cost of living area and I’m very familiar with the idea that you can only cut so much.
You’ve gotten out of bed in the morning and thought about your day ahead.
Rush to get ready for work.
Work all day for an unappreciative boss with miserable and stressed out co-workers for less pay than you want.
Go home late, if you’re lucky you’ll see family or friends for an hour.
Finally go to bed and start it all over again.
You’re reading five days a week for two and don’t think it’s really worth it.
You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with
Why is this important you’re asking.
What in the world does this have to do with making money?
Well, you’re probably not in the best environment.
If you want to be happy you hang out with happy people.
If you wanted to know a lot about cars you’d hang around car guys.
So, who are the people you’re spending the most time with?
Let me guess.
There’s at least a couple of co-workers in your sphere that are miserable, stressed, always broke, and overweight.
Unfortunately that feels like the norm nowadays.
And you won’t become them but living every day in that atmosphere will rub off on you.
Or you won’t be able to take it anymore and just leave.
Like Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent character said in the Dark Knight movie, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
Find those people that have qualities and mindsets that you want.
Investing as the best way to make money
Investing is a great way to make money.
It might even be the best way to make money.
Why?
Because it isn’t dependent on you and your time.
Your money is making money.
The problem?
You need money in order to start investing.
And small amounts don’t add up to large sums unless you have a lot of time to wait.
If you want to be at least upper middle class you need to start investing.
And I’m not only talking about your mortgage.
I mean buying stocks, or real estate, or debt.
We’ll cover investing in yourself and starting a business in the next category.
For now, let’s focus on why investing makes sense financially.
Investing is no longer for the rich.
Anyone can buy stocks commission free.
Setting it up is easy.
Investing is simple.
Doing it with patience and learning from your mistakes is hard.
Always do your homework before investing.
Enough that you’ll stick to your guns when things seem to take a turn for the worse.
And have the wisdom to reevaluate to confirm your initial decisions when they do start to go bad.
But it’s worth it because of the compound interest.
Not only does the money you invest make money.
But that money earned also makes you money.
It’s the snowball rolling down the hill that keeps growing.
If you want the potential to make more money than investing, think about starting your own business.
Starting a business as the best way to make money
If you want to take the risk and potentially make a lot of money you should start a business.
Why is it risky?
Because you’ll fail.
Probably several times.
And you’ll want to quit because you’re not seeing results.
Trust me, it’s not all sunshine and making easy money.
Especially when you’re starting out from scratch never having done it before.
I mean, like everything else, you’re supposed to suck when you do something for the first time.
But if you put in the time and effort to master the fundamentals you can get up and running.
What are some ideas to start?
First, I’m assuming you have a job that you didn’t hate at one point.
Look for freelancing opportunities doing the things in your job that aren’t that bad.
If you prefer to do something completely different because you hate your job and don’t want to think about it in your off time, you can create a course teaching a skill you already know.
Or you can learn something new and look for freelancing opportunities.
Another option is to start an online store.
There are plenty of physical products you can buy from places like Alibaba and sell for more money.
Go search for drop shipping or white label products.
The business option has the most money potential.
But also has the most potential that you lose every dime you put into it.
Have you seen Shark Tank?
How many times have you seen people that have mortgaged their house on developing some product that every viewer knows won’t work.
The failure rate for new businesses is very high.
Sticking with your job as the best way to make money
You want to turn $40 into $400?
Go fill your tank up with $40 of gas and go to work.
The best way to make money is the one that lets you reach your goals. The one that allows you to live the life you want to live.
If you love your job you’ll never work another day in your life.
Conversely, what if your business or side hustle is dependent on you…
And you’re in it just for the money?
Congrats, you’ve given yourself a new job that you hate.
So, why would you want to stick around at your current job after everything we said earlier about your coworkers?
Well, the job you have is stable income.
You’re already making money.
And if you quit to go focus on running a nonprofitable business you’re going to burn through your emergency fund.
Doesn’t sound like an emergency to me.
If you hate your job that much go find one you can tolerate.
It may not have the highest return for your time, but it’s a guaranteed return.
Expected Return
One way to put numbers to all this is to figure out the expected return.
To do that you multiply the amount of money by the likelihood you make that money.
Let’s say you have a job that makes $50,000.
$50,000 * 100% chance that you get paid = $50,000
Now let’s say you want to start a business and think there’s realistically a 30% chance (because you’re just getting started) you can make $120,000 per year.
$120,000*30% = $36,000
Now for investing we’ll say you have $10,000 you can invest. You think there’s a 5% chance you can 10x your investment, a 5% chance your investment will double, an 80% chance you’ll get the historical average stock market return of 8% (rounding up to 10% for easier numbers) and a 5% chance you’ll lose half your money.
5%*100,000 + 10%*20,000 + 80%*11000 – 5%*5000 = expected return of $15,500
Honestly you’d want to put a decent amount of money in that investment…
But you can see that keeping your job gives you the highest expected return.
Because it’s guaranteed.
You can keep starting new businesses in your spare time outside of work until one of them works out.
The real best way to make money
It’s not a secret.
It’s a combo.
Let’s go through the steps:
Get a decent paying job.
Automatically save a percentage of your income for starting a side hustle.
Start a small business in your spare time.
Any side hustle money you either reinvest back into the business to grow it or invest.
Basically you pay yourself a “salary” first.
Just like with your savings.
Invest that money.
So, you’re making money at your job.
Some of that money is making you money in your business.
And some of that money is making you money in the stock market or real estate.
That’s the power of putting your money to work.
Your money makes money for you.
That same dollar you earned from your job keeps earning more money.
Eventually you won’t have to trade your time for a salary unless it’s something you want to do.
You’ll be able to afford to work on your passion.
For most it won’t even take that much.
Think about it.
The real median household income for an American household was $63,179 in 2018.
If you live in a lower cost of living area (read not NYC or LA or the Bay area) you don’t need millions to be able to quit your job.
You just need to replace what you’re making now.
Advice
We already covered above what to do with your money.
Now let’s see what to do with your time.
Keep your miserable job for now.
Use the downtime to start your side hustle business.
Honestly, I’m writing this post on the NYC subway on my way to work.
It could be moonlighting as a freelancer in your current profession.
Or learning a new skill like selling, copywriting, website design, coding, etc and freelance on the side.
You could even start a course that teaches people the skills you already know.
Examples of that are my Stock Market Basics course and my Dividend Investing Course.
Even Steph Curry had a course on basketball fundamentals.
What is something that you know how to do that people want to learn?
It doesn’t have to be something that you’re an “expert” in.
People show each other how to garden, tips about crafts, and how to get started running.
You just need to be one step ahead in the journey to show someone else what you know.
If you would like to get started teaching your skills, one program that I recommend is Dare to Conquer.
Yes, that’s an affiliate link.
I am currently enrolled in DTC so if you have any questions about it, send me an email.
Or you can trust me that the course works and the support system is outstanding.
The first 2 courses are $1.
There’s basically no risk to see if it’s for you.
Wrapping Up
We went in depth to find out the best way to make money.
You learned about the three main ways, starting a business, investing, and getting a salaried job and why a combination of all three is probably the best way to make money.
We went over expected returns, just for you numbers people that like proof of what I’m saying.
But it’s common sense really.
Get a job.
Use your free time to start a small business.
Pay yourself first and use that money to first save, then invest.
People will hate this idea because they hate their jobs.
If you’re already a solopreneur, great!
Still pay yourself first and use that money to either reinvest back into your business or to invest.
If you need out from your current job, learn a skill that can get you a better job and start applying.
All the info is out there to learn website design, coding, sales, copywriting, marketing, etc.
The worst an employer can say is no.
And if you want to teach any of your skills as another way to offer your services, check out DTC.