In a nut shell:

This Twitter income system is very, very, very simple to duplicate. Just follow the steps below:

1. You have a twitter account. (If you don’t have one, register now twitter.com)
2. You register with an ad company. (More on this below.)
3. You pick the sponsored text ads you want to tweet. (eenie-meenie-mynie-moe)
4. You tweet the sponsored text ads. (TWEET!)
5. You get paid. (ka-ching!)

Now let’s talk strategy:

The three companies I picked for this income system are More »

Figuring out your retirement road map is fairly simple, a little bit of multiplication, addition and some division will do the trick.

1. Figure out how much you will need on a monthly basis. Gone are the days of experts who tell you that you will only need 80% of your current income to retire. With rising costs, especially medical costs, you will most likely need the equivalent of 100% of your current income.

Hypothetically speaking if you are living comfortably on $5,000 a month today, then you will need a minimum equivalent of $5,000 a month in retirement.

I use the word “equivalent” because you have to adjust for inflation, which is on average 4% a year. The equivalent of $5,000 a month 18 years from now at average of 4% inflation would be $10,000. Another 18 years and that would make it $15,000.

So if you were 24 years old and making $5,000 a month, you will need $15,000 a month when you turn 60 years old just to keep your current lifestyle.

2. Figure out how long you will need this income. Most people call it quits once they hit 60 years old, unfortunately that number is on a upward trend. Some people are waiting longer before they retire for a bunch of reason but mostly because they have not saved enough. But lets take the example of retiring at 60. The average life expectancy is now hovering around 90 years old. Age 60 to 90 will give you a nice long 30 years of retirement. Not bad, if you have enough saved.

Let’s use the example from Step 1: If you need $15,000 a month for 30 years how much would that add up to?

$15,000 a month x 12 months x 30 years = $5,400,000 that’s $5.4 million dollars

3. Monthly Contribution to freedom. Now let’s figure out how much time you have to save and how much you should be saving. Age 24 to age 60 gives you 36 years to save. If your retirement vehicle is averaging 8% annually then in those 36 years you should be saving a minimum $2,100 a month to hit $5.4 million. Now that’s a stretch, but mathematically possible.

4. Discipline. Would you be able to save and invest $2,100 a month for 36 straight years? It’s doable, but are you willing to do it? Mathematically speaking taking into account the annual 4% inflation against your money and with an average 8% annual interest working for your money, a disciplined 24 year old can start her path to retirement.

*This calculation does not take into account fees or expenses or taxes associated with any particular investment vehicle or savings plan.

Time is priceless, yet it cost us nothing. You can do anything you want with it, but own it. You can spend it, but you can’t keep it. Once you’ve lost it, there no getting it back… it’s just gone. – From the TV Series Medium

Most people do not have time for anything nowadays. It seems like everyone is busy doing everything and nothing at the same time. They are too busy for their dreams. They have the time to do the things that ultimately does not help them move forward like prioritizing errands, watching TV, Facebook updates, parties etc, over the steps they need to do to reach their goals. And that is why the majority of people never become the person they want to be.

Unfortunately we live in a society where everything seems to take up most of our time. When it comes to birthday parties, we plan for weeks. For a vacation we plan for months. For a wedding we plan for years. But when it comes to planning out how to get out of debt, or planning for retirement, most people do not want to take a few hours to talk it over. When it comes to taking a few months to get the education they need to get out of a dead end job, they don’t want to hear it. When it comes to taking  a few minutes to set up an appointment to meet with their primary physician to get better, they don’t have the time. More »

Here is something for us to think about this new year:

“If you are not making money, you are making excuses. Making excuses does not make you money. So stop making excuses and start making money.”

Regardless of what revenue stream you have going on, may it be Internet Marketing, Freelance Photography, a Restaurant, please do us a favor and STOP making excuses. And it does not even have to be about business, whatever you are going through, STOP making excuses and DO something that will help you move on. More »

We recently participated in the Pre Cana activity as part of our prerequisite to getting married at a Catholic Church. Pre Cana, to those who do not know, is like a seminar/retreat/information session on what to expect after you say “I do”.

We were given an activity book  and there were 32 couples with us from 9:00am to 4:30 pm on a Saturday. The fee for each couple was $190.

All we did was mingle with the couples who were sitting with us at the table. We talked about the activity at hand and had a morning and afternoon snack, which was provided. Lunch was separate, we had to go out for that. The day was not boring, but it was not exciting either. All I can say is that there are a lot of topics to think about as a couple that we would not have thought to talk about if we did not attend the Pre Cana.

One thought I did have was how much revenue that one session accumulated. More »

As much as we find ways to make money online, I thought I would take a page from Benjamin Franklin’s book and share how we can save a few bucks on our meals on a recurring basis (just like your online passive income).

A penny saved is a penny earned.

1. Subscribe to your favorite restaurants e-newsletter.

Your favorite restaurant will most probably have a website, especially if its a franchise. These websites are used not just to show you their menu or their address, but its also an outlet for that establishment to send you promotional materials. If they have a website, chances are their marketing is handled by a restaurant solutions company like Fishbowl.com, whose sole purpose is to distribute and market the restaurant’s brand.

Let’s take my favorite restaurant for example: Texas de Brazil (TdB), a Brazillian Steakhouse where you can have unlimited portions of your favorite cut of meat. From the very first time we went there, I signed up for their e-newsletter online. Every year for my birthday I get a complimentary dinner valued at $48 (with a purchase of another dinner). Throughout the rest of the year I also get discounted dinners and lunches.

I decided to use the same strategy at Flattop Grill and had the same yummy result! Flattop Grill is the ultimate “create your own stir fry” place, and they send me a complimentary dinner for my birthday as well, a $15 dollar value with no purchase necessary. I also got a free $8 (value) Ice Cream Creation at Cold Stone Creamery this way. More »

I was at a civil wedding last week at the down town Chicago circuit court and noticed a few things that probably only I will notice. That Saturday there was a long line of couples who were about to tie the knot. The court was open from 9 am to 12 noon only. Each couple had to pay a $10 fee for a judge to say “by the power vested in me by the state of Illinois I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

The ceremony went by pretty quick, it only took less than 5 minutes including picture taking and all that jazz. So if you think about it,  so at  at $10 every 5 minutes… that is $120 an hour. And there were two judge chambers that day, so that court made $240 an hour for 3 hours (9 to 12) gives a revenue of $720 that day. That is more than what most people make in a week. More »

For most of us the answer would be a big fat “NO!” Actually, most of us take the time to figure out how to STOP getting junk mail. I know the feeling, you’d be surprise at what I used to do with my junk mail. But that has all changed when I found out how I could get paid to get these silly pieces of mail.

The concept is quite interesting actually:

1. Junk Mail is sent to me.
2. I get paid for receiving it.

Easy as one and two… I thought about it and weighed my options: If I do not do this I will get unsolicited Junk Mail anyway. If I do this, I’ll get paid for going through my mail which I am already doing anyway. I saw it as a WiN-WIN situation.

On top of the above reasons, to register for this program is “no-strings-attached-free”. There are multiple offers out there that claim to be free but have strings attached like the offers where their product is free only if you complete certain other offers that are not free etc etc. More »

I went with my friends and their son to a batting cage facility in the Bolingbrook area last week to watch their son practice his swing. The facility was very interesting as a business model, here is what I observed:

First off, the place was an open outdoor facility, probably five to six thousand square feet. There were eight batting cages all with different pitch speed from slow pitch softball to 65 mph baseball pitch. Pitching machine were on one side and the cages on the other with nets everywhere to enclose the perimeter. The ground between the cages and the pitch machines was on a grade so that wherever the balls would land they would roll into the machines that would pick up the balls automatically.

It cost $1.25 for one token, which gives you 12 pitches. Each pitch had an interval of 10 seconds. So each cage earns $1.25 every 120 seconds or 2 minutes. That’s $37.5 per hour. If the place had all eight cages occupied for a full 8 hours a day that would generate 37.5 x 8 x 8 = $2,400 a day of revenue. If they are open every day of the year under those conditions, then they would make $876,000 a year. More »