Guaranteed $20

After reading this post on con men, I came up with my own way to earn $20 while in a bar.

First you search for the densest person in the room. Blondes, drunks, and blonde drunks are usually a good target for beginners. And then you approach your target, do some small talk, and let it slip somewhere in the conversation that you are a fortune teller. The natural reaction of most people is one of curosity and this leads to questions of you to prove your fortune telling abilities.

Then you, the swindler, backtrack a bit and say "well, I'm only right about 50% of the time. But I'm willing to bet $20 on it."

Then you take a twenty from him and then tell him "Go into the bathroom right now you'll see a fire-breathing unicorn."

The target goes to bathroom and you move around the corner and wait. When he comes back and finds you, you instantly say "I knew you'd come and ask for your money back!" And then you pocket his twenty dollar bill.

Coins

My buddy Paddy sent me this, thought I'd share:

I thought you might like this. You can get up to $500 ($250 increments) of the $1 president coins from the US Mint shipped free. The shipping disappears when you go to the final checkout screen. This is cool for a couple of reasons.

1) coins are cool and dollar bills are such a pain in the balls. So, circulate these things.

2) If you want to be a true cheapskates, you can buy these with a credit card and get whatever rewards, x%, skymiles, etc. I suppose you'd have to carry 10lbs of coins to the bank if you just wanted to deposit them, but hey. You could look at this as an immediate 2% (or whatever cc rewards you have) on a $500 investment.

3) who doesn't like Andrew Jackson?

All solid points. I'd also like to add a part 4 to this if you still aren't sold on coins. This is from the old Comedy Central show Upright Citizens Brigade:

I.O.U.S.A

Looks like a must-see.



Official Website: http://www.IOUSAtheMovie.com

Some new ideas to make money and save money

You can read about what I've come up with on Main Street today. Let me know if any of the ideas work out for you.

And don't even try to sell me your art.

Book Giveaway

The Bank Bonuses blog not only says "A Million Bucks by 30" is a must-read, but that he is also giving away my book for free. So far only 8 people have signed up to win. Those are some good chances! All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post and he will randomly select a winner. You have less than 40 hours to enter. Good luck!

Extreme Home Makeover goes bust

I haven't been this angered by a news story in a long time. A family on Extreme Makeover got a free pimped-out mansion with no mortgage, plus a $100,000 stiped to cover carrying costs such as utilies, insurance, etc.

The couple is now in foreclosure. After the makeover, they took out a $450,000 home equity loan and invested it in a speculative construction company that apparently didn't do too well.

It's stories like this that make me believe that no matter what helping hand you give people, it's just easier for some people to be broke. (The $100,000 homeless man story comes to mind too. And this $54 million dollar lottery winner.)

And they all had access to financial advisors.

I'm speechless.

Explanation of the mortgage crisis

To fully understand what caused the tremendous rise in the real estate market and then the subsequent fall, check out this thorough and interesting explanation about what caused it all. It's an hour long, but it's amazing. It's from NPR's This American Life, one of my favorite radio shows. Stream it for free.