What should you do if you got no money?

Answer 1

Practice a money building plan called the Million Dollar Penny! It doesn't matter HOW much money you have, what matters is WHAT do you DO with that money!

If you KNOW what to do, you can take ANY amount of money, even as little as a penny that you find on the sidewalk, and build it up to a million dollars in 9 weeks! I've already gone from 1 penny to over a thousand dollars in 5 weeks!

Once you have enough money to do what you want, you can go back to the old way of making money if you don't like getting rich!

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Comment:

And if you believe that, I have the deed to a bridge that you might like to buy.

Reply:

It is surely helpful to be skeptical of something that sounds too easy. However, it is ANYTHING but easy to follow a plan that you've never done before OR never heard of anybody else doing.

The first item I bought, (after first picking up a penny in the Redding Mall shopping center in Redding, CA), was to hit Electronics Boutique. I found some outdated strategy guides for computer games. The store has a policy of reducing prices down until the item sells, even to a penny on closeout items if necessary, so, I found a $19.95 book that sold, IN THE MALL, for exactly 1 cent! I then made a scan of the cover and the receipt, and went down to the local used book store. Since the book was brand new, other than the little bit of handling that occured while I drove over to the store, I got the full 10% in cash that the store offered at that time for used books that they wanted. If you know math, you would be able to calculate my ROI or Return On Investement. 1 penny into $2.00 in a few hours is a FABULOUS rate of return! I can add more stages to the journey, but it involves realizing that you CANNOT do the SAME THING at each stage of money. What works for $50, won't work for beans for $5,000. You have to continually expand your horizons and seek out opportunities that you've never dealth with before. THIS is the hard part, heheheh!

No bridges needed.

Peace be with you!

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Rejoinder:

The website that explains the Million Dollar Penny is www.fool.com. If that doesnt tell you something, nothing will.

Further info:

The Motley Fool talks about buying and selling STOCKS. You don't control ANYTHING when you buy a stock. The COMPANY controls the activities of the company, and their chosen financial activity controls the price of the stock. The HOPE of buying the next "penny stock" (defined as a stock priced under $5) that will be WORTH a million dollars someday, (which is what those articles were talking about), has absolutely no bearing on MAKING a million dollars by becoming curious about your world enough to search out opportunities that have a HIGH ROI relative to traditional, passive investments (such as stocks, bonds, etc.).

The terminology IS similar SOUNDING, and I thank you for pointing out this obvious similarity right off the bat. As far as I know, I am the only one touting the particular flavor of "The Million Dollar Penny" that is (barely) described above.

It is my belief, (subject to verification), that there is PLENTY of money, goods and services and the people to supply them. What we have a LACK of, is the confidence to HAVE all that we need, (and when the bread and butter run out on the table, it is VERY hard for me to keep MY confidence up also), and that opportunities abound. We have a lack of faith in our financial system, in the integrity of the people who appear to be "running the show" and the value systems of the businesses that are reportedly lying, cheating and stealing as much as they can get away with that we see and hear about all the time in the media.

Ordinary people, who don't have remarkable opportunities to run large organizations for their personal profit, nevertheless have God given talents and skills. Given a systematic method for practicing buying and selling skills, I hope to prove that EVERYBODY can make ENOUGH to support a modest lifestyle without having to endure decades of indentured servitude, or compromising their values unduly, as many corporate structures require.

The basic system says: It is easy to find things that you can buy at a given price level, and that IF you take the time to find the right market for, will make you double to ten times your money. If you only double your money, you will have to work each level of the Million Dollar Penny 5 times or more before you can advance to the next level. If you make ten times your money, you only have to find one deal at each level.

If you make 200 times your money, as I did on my very first deal, you can skip a level.

Week 1: Pick up a penny off the ground. Shopping malls are excellent places to do this, as teenagers are constantly discarding things they believe to be worthless. Buy something for a penny, (it doesn't have to be at the mall, but I did it just to prove that it isn't necessary to go to garage sales, that REAL retail stores WILL sell you something for a penny), that you KNOW is worth somewhere between 2 to 10 cents (or more). Go sell it for that much money and record your progress. If you don't have enough money (10x) to progress to the next level, do another deal at this level.

Week 2: Take your 10 cents, and go buy something somewhere for around a dime that you KNOW is worth at least 20 cents to a dollar. Sell it. If you have less than a dollar, repeat this step until you do.

Week 3:Grow your money from a dollar to 10 dollars. Use exactly the same principles as before, but if you are starting to have trouble thinking of things that you can buy for a dollar that are worth 2 to 10 dollars, look in the paper. Classified ads have lots of things for sale in this price range.

Week 4: Grow your money from 10 dollars to 100 dollars. You will probably have to be buying different sorts of things than you have been so far. Your OLD methods won't work as well any longer. I can buy a car for $40 whenever there is a car auction up north of where I live. I KNOW that I can sell ANY car for $80 to $500. It runs, after all, and just because the people at the auction can't be bothered advertising their auction more effectively doesn't mean that there aren't cars for sale for cheap and that they won't be purchased by people that need transportation to get to work!

Week 5: Grow your money from 100 dollars to $1,000. You will probably be able to deal in cars and mobile homes and tools in this price range.

Week 6: Grow your money from $1,000 to $10,000. Okay, things are getting considerably easier now. You can buy property for this price range pretty easily. Check out eBay if you doubt me. Surely you can figure out a way to sell something that somebody wants for $10,000, right? I bought a "worthless" parcel for $100 and last year, somebody sold 4 of these so called "worthless parcels" all in one sale, that went for $10,000 each on the open market. Turns out some people think $10,000 is a bargain for a bigger yard next to their home.

Week 7: Grow your money from $10,000 to $100,000. real estate is very likely to be your vehicle here, but businesses, airplanes, or anything that you understand well enough to find a bargain priced asset will do. Don't let your previous experiences limit your imagination!

Week 8: Grow your money from $100,000 to $1,000,000. Apartment buildings and strip malls and various other properties qualify for this price range. I would guess that heavy equipment would also be a likely candidate. You probably could easily make this much money on options on real estate if you didn't care to actually take ownership of the property at this level. The time to manage your due dilligence might slow the process down, but hey, making a million in a year isn't so bad either, right?

And so what if you flub up a couple of steps and lose money a few times? Just drop back to the level you last managed to achieve success at, and do it 5 or 10 more times, and rejoin the next level with a replenished purse.

As I stated, I took a penny from scratch to around a thousand in 5 weeks or so. I have the documentation, and I am planning on starting another round shortly. I'll be using current ads, current prices and current bargains to show how this is really possible. I personally know of houses that I can buy tomorrow for as little as $500 (yeah, they're in lousy shape, bad neighborhood, etc.), and can be fixed up to be worth over $100,000 IN the bad neighborhood, etc. If you can do the fixing for less than $90,000 then you've moved up pretty well to another level, haven't you? I saw a contractor who was really organized about the whole thing. HE bought 8 houses in the same block at once, and had his construction workers swing through each house and move to the one next door once their particular construction phase was completed. I don't have anything like that kind of experience, but I bet I could HIRE him!

If anybody wants to join in the fun, I will be collecting stories at each price level from all areas around the country. Later, I will do this in as many parts of the world as makes sense. Clearly, an industrialized country is easier than a primarily agrarian economy. In the USA, we throw away so much valuable stuff, that I doubt that I would have to pay ANYTHING for the stuff that I could then sell to make a million dollars!

[At the time that this was originally written] The economy has tanked pretty deeply. You are wondering what you are going to do if things get worse yourself. This technique will allow YOU to teach yourself some survival skills that at worst, will be an enjoyable waste of time. The confidence that you would have after taking yourself from a penny to a million dollars would mean that you would never again complain about a lack of money (which is only another tool after all) as being the reason for your living a life that wasn't fulfilling and meaningful. Your life may or may not ever be fulfilling and meaningful, but you will realize that it isn't the lack of money that made it so.

Because of the current economy, there are SCADS of bargains out there for an adventurous spirit to find! Go forth and prosper! Pay cash, and never go into debt. My lesson in this regard has been "If I don't have all the money I want to buy something, then I must not be a very good steward of that much money yet." I'll go and practice my stewardship skills and then see whether or not I am allowed to play with a bigger allowance.

Thank you for your skepticism, and your helpful point about the Stock Market scam that sounds similar to the Million Dollar Penny. Please take the time to see whether or not YOU could start with a small amount of money, and systematically, make it grow rapidly. If you are insulted by making small amounts of money, then go ahead and make what you think you are capable of. I think that practicing EACH level once a week will keep me current on the state of the local economy in a way that nothing else will. I HAVE NOT yet gone all the way through these steps IN SEQUENTIAL ORDER! WHEN I DO, I will point it out. I am concerned that people that skip steps will not develop enough skill and confidence to repeat their experience ANY time that they want or desire. This is why I urge you to consider being humble enough to learn what buying an item for a penny and then selling it for 10 cents (or more) will teach you (and so forth). Until then,

May God bless, and peace be with you!

2013Jul11 Note: It has been years since I've visited this site and answered any questions. Today, I got an email notifiying me that somebody has given me a "confidence point" for this answer. This is somewhat interesting, because I am sitting, pretty much homeless and apparently loveless, on the concrete bench next to the public libary in a mid-western state that I've never been to before.

I am staring at a penny lying on the ground, next to a trash can recepticle, while reading the email message.

Is this the universe's way of giving me a "job" (as well as telling me to "mind my own business")?

I think so. Okay, I'll start the game up again, and write down my experiences about it. Perhaps it will be amusing enough for you to enjoy while you read it. I'll post a link here someday to the article.

Thanks for the confidence point, whoever you are! If it weren't for your action today, I wouldn't be taking any myself, more than likely.

KIAT

P.S. It was a 2010 P Lincoln penny, with the new, ugly shield design on the reverse.