First, let me remind you that the title of this article is "How To Make Money Without Having A Job" and not "How To Make Money Without Working." Now let's get started and get to work. In this short article you are going to have to work with me on this, I can't make the transitions from point to point perfectly smooth.
How Money Is Made
Money is made by exchange, someone has the money and the other party has something they can exchange for the money, a tangible thing like a car or an intangible thing like a service, perhaps tutoring or mowing the yard. If the person with the money wants the product or service the other party has and they can agree on the price and terms the exchange is made. The person receiving the money got it by exchange.
Important point number one: Money is made by exchange.
When we think of making money people traditionally link making money to having a job. Certainly for the last century, even longer in some parts of the world, the way most people made exchanges for money was through a job, they worked for someone else. Isn't it interesting how we say that? They worked for someone else. Shouldn't you be working for you?
So for the last century or more people have commonly worked for someone else as a way to make an exchange for money. They exchanged what they could do for money. Maybe they drove a truck or flipped a hamburger, maybe they typed in a secretarial pool or they sold merchandise in a store. Whatever they did they exchanged what they could do for money in someone else's money machine.
Not only can you do what you are doing for others you can do it for yourself. Flip a hamburger in a job for money in someone else's restaurant and money machine? You could be flipping that hamburger in your own restaurant and money machine. Drive a truck for a trucking company? You could be driving a truck in your own money machine. Don't let the phrase money machine throw you, we also call it a business.
Important point number two: There are other ways to make money exchanges besides in a job.
People break out in a sweat when I mention starting a business, but actually they already have done just that. General Motors has income and expenses. Walmart has income and expenses. You have income and expenses. Congratulations! You are in business, in fact you are a business. If you haven't looked at things that way or managed your life that way it could explain why you aren't making a lot of financial headway.
Important point three: You are already in business, but you may not be operating in a business-like way.
If you have a job who makes the decisions about what you do and how much money you make? I am betting it is the person that knows they are in business. You may have a boss or a manager above you, but the business owner sets the policies and hires the managers.
Important point number four: A job is where you are in business and you let someone else make all the decisions and the majority of the profits.
That just doesn't sound quite right does it?
Let's run through all this again.
- Money is made by exchange.
- Traditionally most people make money by using jobs to make those exchanges.
- A job is just one role in a business.
- You are actually already in business in a personal way.
- You could also be in business as an owner.
- Owners of businesses make most of the decisions and most of the money.
- There is no reason you can't change roles.
Some years ago I had a service contract with a national company that had its offices in Nashville, Tennessee. I was there three days a week so it didn't take long for me to notice this man pulling up every afternoon in a van and letting four women out of the van, each with a vacuum cleaner and a cleaning caddy. The women were cleaning the offices at night in this multiple floor office building. I found out later this man had five cleaning crews.
Here are the numbers I got from the women, three to four women per crew makes nearly twenty women cleaning each night. Each woman got about $100 a night for cleaning. The business owner got an average of $100 per office suite cleaned per night. These buildings averaged four floors or five floors, but let's just say three averaging four suites each since I don't really know how many used his service for cleaning.
The totals as estimated:
15 women get a total of $1,500 a night.
The business owner took in about $6,000 a night and paid out $1,500 plus some cleaning supplies.
Net profit to the owner: Nearly $4,500 a day (or night since they cleaned at night).
Later I found out one of the women working for him had estimated he cleared over $5,000 a night so I am somewhere close with these numbers.
And this was over ten years ago, I am sure the cost of cleaning an office has gone up since then. Do you have a van and a vacuum cleaner?
Bob Proctor from the movie The Secret made his first million dollars cleaning floors. He started doing it himself and then when he couldn't do all the work he hired people. Eventually he franchised the business. Eventually he sold the business.
I am just using this cleaning example because it is simple and about anyone can do it if they have the customer base in their area. What else could you do? Anything you can do! Can you tutor? People actually pay tutors to teach their children to tie their shoes. Can you tie your shoes? Then you could be a tutor. I know a woman who made more money baking cakes than she did in her office job so she quit the job and went fulltime to making more money.
Open up your thinking. Anything is possible. I know a man who lost his job as a maintenance man in a factory and when his unemployment ran out he started putting smoke detectors he bought at the department store in homes. Soon he was fixing leaky faucets and replacing worn out light switches. Next he had a home maintenance crew working for him in his new business. Losing his job was his big break.
Anything is possible, I actually met a woman who sold her disease. She came down with a rare illness and when she could no longer work she sent out information packages to research clinics and universities offering herself for research. Two replied, one got a grant to study her disease and to pay her living expenses while they worked. She also makes money as a speaker telling her story. Amazing!
I hope this helps you just begin to see the possibilities and realize they are limitless. With a little thought I am sure you will have many more ideas of how you can make money without a job. Who knows, I may soon hear you are hiring!
If you would like to learn more about making money and building
wealth I am pleased to offer you my new eBook, "Empty Pockets" as a free
resource. It is a book covering the reasons most people are not wealthy
and how to fix them.