It pays to recycle and cash in your bottles

I remember hearing about a story about a mother in the United States who collected and picked up bottles to put her child through College. That is truly amazing! It just shows that every little bit helps, but you still have to work hard. This mother would wake up early in the morning everyday and look in people's trash to collect bottles. Every time we toss away a recyclable can or bottle, we are literally throwing money away. It's a good habit to start recycling and be mindful of our environment, and it's just another way to put a little bit of money back into your pocket. 

Today, I brought 3 garbage bags full of bottles, cans, milk jugs, etc. The pay out was $21.15. Not bad for just collecting recyclables.

I finally got a hit from one of the many items I've been trying to sell on Kijiji. I sold my old Kenwood receiver with speakers for $20. I will continue to sell stuff on Kijiji until everything is sold. If I'm unable to sell, I will donate.

Today, I made $41.15.

My grand total to date is $302.95. Still a long ways from my goal but one teeny tiny step at a time!

Brainstorming ideas on ways to make money

It's hard to make $1 million dollars through a single source. You'll need multiple streams of income in hopes to hit your goal of $1 million dollars. The fun part is thinking of ideas of how to make money. The hard part is actually taking action and seeing your concept through. Further to that, it's about believing and not losing sight of your goal. Sure, people can chuckle at your claim to make $1 million dollars but the thing is - you never know unless you try! We can all dream of making $1 million dollars but if there's no action, and it's just talk, you'll never get there. It'll always be a dream. You have to believe that you can do it, take action, and perhaps it might just happen!

As an entrepreneur, I'm always thinking of new ideas. I'm often guilty of thinking of new ideas but not moving forth with the concept. I guess it's a matter of time, resources, and money most times! Since my goal is to make $1 million dollars, I need to start moving forth with some ideas I've had in the past, and also looking at opportunities where I can earn some extra cash.

In thinking about ideas on ways to make money, think about your own skills. Do you have a skill that people could benefit from? Perhaps you are a skilled artist, someone who can play the piano, a handyman, a creative marketing person? Why not try and market your skills to earn some extra cash?

For myself, I have a passion for business. I love coming up with new ideas and I suppose it's time to start taking action with some of my business ideas to perhaps generate other streams of income.

Below are some of my general thoughts and business ideas of how I will generate other streams of income. I realize some ideas will not fly but then again, you have to put it out there and see how people respond. It's all about taking action and doing it!

1. Participate in a focus group in your area and get paid for your opinions. I found a company in Calgary called www.estyle.biz.

2. I have been in the barter business for 10 years now. I think it's time to write a book about barter and how businesses can leverage barter as a marketing alternative. I will look at publishing an e-book for sale.

3. My passion and skill sets are in business - primarily in sales and marketing. I love helping people and I can offer my time for business consulting services.

4. I have been using Constant Contact for the past 10 years. I can help people create e-newsletters to help businesses save their time!

5. If people don't have the time to do groceries, I can be their grocery runner and pick up and drop off their groceries.

6. Build a business whereby parents can shop for unique baby or toddler items.

7. Build a business whereby aspiring musicians or artists can upload their portfolio, and major recording labels would be able to view their portfolio.

8. Build a business whereby companies can create their own short video advertisement that can easily be shared via social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN).

9. Build a business where people can get paid for referrals when referring business that closes

10. Continue to put aside money from my own business

11. Create infomercials for local businesses

I guess the above is a start, and now I have to start implementing and building each one of those ideas.

Breaking down the numbers

In thinking about how to make $1 million dollars, we need to break this number down. If my goal is to make $1 million dollars by July 22, 2017, that means I have to make $34,482.77 every month for the next 29 months. Wow?! How is this even possible? Unless I was a very well paid CEO of a big corporate company, celebrity, famous music artist, or an elite athlete making a ton of money - making $30k+ doesn't seem realistic for the average person.

Let's break this monthly targeted number even further to find out how much money we have to make per day. 29 months is equivalent to 883 days. If I take $1,000,000 divided by 883 days, it equals $1,132.51. This is how much money I have to make per day for the next 883 days.

Now, the challenge is still trying to figure out how to make $1,132.51 per day. If I divide this number by 8 working hours in a day, I have to make $141.57 per hour. We can check our calculation to see if we're still on target. $141.57 x 8 working hours = $1,132.56. Let's then take $1,132.56 x 883 days = $1,000,050.40. The numbers are slightly off with rounding but it still hits our target of $1,000,000.

When you break down the numbers, it seems to be a bit more achievable, but now the real challenge is figuring out to how to make roughly $1,135.00 per day. For most people, to make $1,135.00 per day is not realistic. This is where you now have to get creative and think about different ways of generating multiple streams of income. If I had 5 streams of income coming from different sources, this means each business would have to net $227 ($1135 / 5 = $227). It's now time to brainstorm ideas of how I'm going to generate multiple streams of income.

Putting money aside

I'm self-employed and I met with a client to pick up payment in arrears. I know people say rule of thumb is to pay yourself at minimum 10% first. I will pay myself more than the minimum as the cash is not immediately needed, and plus I'll have to pay the Government their share of what I collected in sales so I have to put money aside for that. However, for my goal I will put aside ~50%.

Today, I will put aside $221.60.

My grand total now is $261.80. I will soon have to search for a bank to deposit my funds and see which bank offers the best interest rate, however, I believe with most banks you need at minimum a $1000.

Putting money aside if you're self-employed or working for someone  has to become a habit. You have to start somewhere whether it's 5%, 10%, 20%, 50% or more? It has to make financial sense for you as we all still have expenses to survive.

Loose change

The other day I was looking for stuff to sell on Kijiji and during my hunt, I found loose change around the house, in my office, and in my car. I didn't find a whole lot but I'm sure if you look around you'll be able to find some loose change. It'd sure be interesting to know on average how much loose change people have lying around? Every little bit helps to hit your goal!

My count after the loose change hunt is:

$9.74 CDN
$30.46 US

My US dollars was from a previous trip to Phoenix a few months back and I had it stashed in an envelope. Let's just say my US dollars are on par with my Canadian dollars. My total count right now is $40.20.

I also did get an inquiry for my shoes, and perhaps that'll lead to a sale? I'll be posting more stuff for sale on Kijiji during the coming weeks and hopefully I'll be able to score a few hits!

Get creative in finding ways to make money!

Like many of you, I'm sure we all dream of making or having a million dollars in our bank account but the question is how? What's important is putting a plan in place and keeping your eye on the prize. Whether it's a million dollars or not, you have to have a plan, be diligent in putting money aside, and find creative ways to make money to hit your goal.

Starting today, I'm going to see how much money I might be able to save and put aside to hit my goal. My goal is to hit $1 million dollars by July 22, 2017 or earlier. Is this possible? It's seems like a bit of a stretch but you never know unless you try! This will also be a neat social experiment as well.

I'm going to start with $0 and will try different things to make some money to hit my goal. It'll sure be an interesting journey and hopefully I can stay committed!

So...what's the plan? First thing is to find things around my house that I don't use or wear anymore and try to sell on Kijiji! If I have no buyers, I can always donate : )

Let's see if we have any takers for my size 11 shoes?!