Get Rich Quick Scheme

I've come up with a great idea.  Okay, so you know how it's nearly impossible to win the lottery?  I know it because my mom has bought a ticket for the lottery for every drawing for years and hasn't won anything yet.  I know that it only takes one time to be a winner, but the odds are pretty steep.  You can't win if you don't play, but playing can get discouraging.

So I've come up with a plan.  You see, I actually live on the same street as Tennessee's lottery office here in Nashville.  So this idea makes sense to me because the travel is minimal.  Anyway, here it is.

Okay, someone won a bunch of money by winning the lottery, they have to go to the lottery office in their state's capitol. (at least that's where the lottery office was in Michigan and that's where it is in Tennessee.) What's one thing you would do if you won the lottery?  Buy stuff, sure.  But I'm sure you would be generous in giving some of it away, don't you think?  You win the lottery, you go to the office, they give you your money and you couldn't be happier!  You want to do something good with your new found fortune.  As you exit the lottery office building, you see a homeless man, looking sad and disheveled, perhaps even holding a cute little baby.  He's just asking for some spare change from passers-by.  Well hey, you just won millions of dollars in the lottery, let's give this poor homeless man a fresh new start.  Here's a pile of dough, young man.  Spend it wisely.

Bam.

You need to increase your likelihood of actually coming across a fresh new multimillionaire and convince them to give you money without actually asking.  That's why you have to hang around the lottery office.  Everyone that wins the lottery in Tennessee has to go through those doors.  If you look sad enough, I'm sure those happy new rich folks will throw you a bone, right?

So that's my scheme to get rich quick.  Don't just beg from the regular folks on the street or your family members.  Beg from the lottery winners.  Duh! You might not have the millions you would have if you actually won the lottery, but you will have something. And people win the lottery all the time!  There are millions of people in Tennessee.  Someone is going to win some sort of lottery on a regular basis.  And as I said above, every single one of them has to walk through those doors.

Something tells me this isn't going to work, but if you need me, Evie and I are going off to rub some dirt on our clothes.

Today, I Learn How to Spell "Entrepreneur"

This morning, I had a great idea for a blog post, and now I've spent the past hour racking my brain to figure out what the subject was.  Why don't I write these things down?

No, instead, I'll just move along and talk about something else.  I watched this show on ABC last night called "the Shark Tank."  On the show, they bring in people who have a little business and are trying to get an invester "the sharks" to invest in their company to help it grow.  It's a pretty good concept for a show, because they're not searching for the "next great thing," which expects to find something that is nothing and turn it into something bigger.  This show takes a good idea, and the "sharks" invests their own hard-earned money in it.  If it's not good, they'll take a pass on it, but if it's a good idea, they invest, while taking a steak in the company in some way, shape or form. Great idea, as this sort of thing happens all the time anyway, just not always on TV.  People have great ideas for businesses and they pitch the idea to people with a lot of money, and when the idea or company takes off, the investor makes more money on top of their already massive pile of ching.  It's a reality show, and I'm not all that crazy about reality shows in general, but this show kind of grabbed me in a way I didn't expect.

You see, with the sellers market I've been in, I want to find a non-traditional way to make my millions, because at this point, I have too.  Working for this security company is not supposed to be permanent.  I want to be an entrepreneur, but I need that golden plan.  I need that Facebook.  I need that Napster.  I need that eBay.  I need that Twitter.

I mean, not that I'm going to get into the tech department, but you get the idea, right? I need to come up with that idea that will make me a million.  I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and I think if I work hard enough at it, I could do anything.  It's all about what you put in, that's what you'll get out of it.

Also, on related but altogether side note, I had created some products to sell on the site Zazzle.  Someone bought one of the orders I had made, but soon after that, some of my products got pulled from the site because of "copyright infringement."  Total bullshit.  So I thought I was about to cash in with my clever "iPad mouse pad" which looked like an iPad, but it was just a mouse pad, but now, I'm not.  Makes me sad.  But you know, I was totally ripping off Apple computers inc.  Haha, well, it was worth a shot, right?

Posts About Babies?: The Sellers Market

What can I sell next?  That is the question.  You see, last Saturday, I got home from work, and started taking pictures of some jerseys I have in my closet.  These are jerseys I never wear, yet are pretty sweet items that I'm sure someone out there would want.  So, I took pictures of them and posted them for sale on the legendary auction site eBay.  I have bought things on eBay before, but never sold anything, so I was excited to see that people were "viewing" my items.  Then came the bids.  I have one bid, the minimum amount, on each of the two jerseys I have up for auction. That means they're sold, essentially. The final amounts will be settled when the auctions close at approximately 3:00 p.m. this afternoon. The money I will make will probably be low, and the hassle will probably be not worth it in the long run, but you know what?  This is starting me out on a new path.  What else can I sell?

Now, I know what I like and what I would be interested in buying on eBay.  There are thousands of things up for sale and auction on that website, and most listings I just don't trust.  Not that I think everyone on there has become a scam artist, but it looks like a lot of folks have found a way to make a buck off unsuspecting web surfers via a large, trusted site like eBay.  I don't want to deceive people, I just want to sell some things and make a buck or two.  It's not really about the money for me anymore, though that's not to say it's not about the money at all, either.  This is exciting.  I believe it's also my natural instinct to try to better myself in preparation on the newest member of the family.  But you see, I can't just throw any old thing up for sale on eBay.  I have to have confidence that someone else out there would be willing to pay money for it.  I also have to be willing to part with it, whatever it is.  It's that balance I'm trying to find, and I'm looking around the apartment for that balance.

I know I would buy a jersey off eBay, because I have before.  I know that if I was willing to buy something like that off there, someone else probably would as well.  Well, I only have so many jerseys that I'm willing to part with, and those are currently up for auction.  So that's no longer an option.  It's not worth my time to sell CD's on there because I promise I could sell them back to the used record shops around town and make a better profit, and it's less hassle as far as shipping and what not.  Plus it's instant transaction at the record stores.  So, I'll be doing that again, as I did back in December.

Why do I want to sell everything?  I don't even know.  My friend Cindy says it's perfectly natural, and I would have to agree, but to just be randomly compelled to go out and hawk my shit to strangers, this is so unlike me.  But the important thing is, I'm having fun.  I got big dreams of a secondary income from selling shit to people on a regular basis.  I just have to find that balance of supply and demand.  What in my supply will people demand?

I Won The Lottery

Chances are, at one point or another, you have thought about what it would be like to win the lottery, what it would be like to have infinite money just by buying a ticket for a dollar. I have spent entire days thinking of nothing other than the idea of being a multimillionaire by the end of the day. It especially happens on the days when I have actually purchased a lottery ticket, like this past Tuesday. The Mega Millions jackpot was in the 180million dollar territory, and so therefore, my mom forced me to buy a ticket. She even paid for it. Well anyway, as you can see by me still blogging to pass the time, and also despite the title, I did not win. In fact, no one won. So the jackpot climbed once again, and they drew new numbers on Friday, which no one won. So again, the jackpot climbed, and now it sits at $290,000,000.00. I just wore out my zero key typing that out.

Let's think about that for a minute, shall we? I have a very handy iPhone app that I think is actually from the Mega Millions people, called iMega. On this app, it tells you what the current jackpot is, what the previous draws were, and things like that. $290,000,000.00! I include the cents because that's funny and it adds drama because there are more zeros than are necessary, while remaining factual.

When you win a big jackpot, they take a chuck out of it for taxes, yet no one ever really knows how much that chuck is. On this app, it gives an approximation of the amount you would actually take home if you won, both for the lump sum payment, and also for the annuity. If I were to win teh jackpot on this Tuesday (you bet your ass I'm buying a ticket or two) at $290,000,000, the lump sum payment would be $136,950,016. That's after taxes. Just boom, one hundred thirty six million dollars in your checking account. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean. That also means you would be paying $156,049,984 in TAXES and whatnot. Crazy talk. That's over half your winnings. But I say, at that point, who cares? You have 136,000,000, regardless of what happens to the other 156.

The annuity is what excites me. At this jackpot level, you would get a $8,365,384 check, every year for 26 years. I'd be 53 when the payments stop coming. There is no possible way I could spend that much money by then, is there? Let's dive into these numbers a bit.

...Gets out calculator...All these numbers will be for the annuity deal.

All total, I would be paid $217,499,464 by the time I turn 53.

I would have $697,114 to spend per month.

That's $22,919 every day

That's $955 an HOUR

$15.91 a minute

If this 8.3 million dollars was more viewed as an hourly wage, like what you make for working 40 hours a week...You would be getting paid $4,357 an hour. $6,535.50 an hour on holidays. But you'd have to assume time and a half wouldn't be paid for holidays, because that would increase you're salary, wouldn't it? And at this point, is that really necessary anyway?

I think eventually I would get bored trying to figure out what to spend my daily $22,000 on. I could buy a mid-sized sedan every day for 26 years, I suppose. 9,490 Nissan Altimas.

My wife tells me she watched a documentary one time where they followed people in the aftermath of winning the jackpot and how it destroyed their lives. She claims she wouldn't want to win a jackpot because she wouldn't want her life ruined by an exorbitant amount of money. I told her I'd take my chances. I'd rather be rich and see what happens than be afraid to be rich. That just doesn't make much sense to me.

So wish me luck tomorrow, and I wish you the same. Because chances are, if I win, I'll give you some. And if you win, I would expect the same treatment.