Millennial Making Millions

The Penny Hoarder is not your friend. They penny hoarder runs a website that will come out with a list every so often about ways to make money. The easiest and most "do-able" option they list every time are different paid survey opportunities. I was bored, naive, and wanted to make more money. I took the bait and downloaded a couple survey apps.  Having tried a few others since deciding to write this article, I'll give you what you need to know about these different survey options. General Survey Information: I haven't earned enough to cash out from any one of these. This isn't to say that it can't be done. I have points and cash in each of the different apps saved up, but they all require you to meet a minimum threshold before you can cash out. "That's like a dollar an hour" It's difficult to reach the minimum threshold when you only make about a dollar an hour, which is about how much I made doing surveys. Theoretically, you could m

You've looked into a multi-level marketing company. In all honesty, I think everyone has, but we treat them as taboo. We seem to feel that society places them at a level just below prostitution and drug dealing, so we don't dare talk about them, or ask questions openly. Although I am not in a Multi-Level-Marketing company, I think that society is overly harsh. I'm unashamed to say that I have looked into a few of them. In doing so, and in talking to other people about them, I have heard so many generalizations, both for and against multi-level marketing companies. I want to lay out the different things I've heard, then explore them. Behind every generalization is a grain of truth, or in some cases a lot of truth. Before I do, I am not a part of a multi-level marketing company. My wife is, and I have turned down a few offers, so I know most of the generalizations. Generalization #1: It's a pyramid scheme that leads you to leach off of underlings Strictly s

          When you think of eleven year old kids making money recycling, you think of cub scouts going door to door collecting pop cans. My brother Tyler and I had much bigger ideas. My family would recycle our newspapers, taking them to the local elementary school. Community recycling hadn't come to Utah yet. My dad had the idea that someone could make a business of picking up people's paper recycling and taking it to the school for them. My brother and I were fascinated by this idea. Tyler had, and still has, mad computer skills, so he made a flyer, and we went door to door in our neighborhood. Maybe it was initially out of pity, but we had about a dozen people sign up on our first day out, and it only grew from there.           We started out putting people's papers in a big old cardboard box in the trunk of our family's Buick. My mom drove my brother and I to people's houses and we would get the papers and then take them to the school. It quickly expanded an

"I swear there was more money in that account." I think we've all said this before. Then we open our bank statements and say, "Oh yeah. Yup. Uh-huh... *Sigh*" When you're in college this seems to happen fairly often. There is a way to stop that cycle though: make a budget! A budget will put you back in control of your financial situation. A budget should be realistic. You plan out what your monthly expenses are, what your income is, and you set goals to improve your financial state.           The most important thing with a budget is to make sure you have enough money coming in to pay for all of your expenses. If you can't pay your bills, you need to either figure out where to make cuts, or figure out how to make more money! "I'm able to pay my bills, but I can't seem to build up my savings account." What are you saving for? Because I'm  s upposed to  isn't a good reason. If you don't have a good reason to save mon

          At my last job I was responsible for filming and live streaming events. I've filmed footage for a couple online classes and I run three YouTube channels. You wouldn't think filming an advertisement for my wife's makeup company would be a big deal. She wants me to be the model in the commercial though, modeling some girly lip-stuff.            How did I get in this mess? Well, for me it started on our wedding day. My wife wanted to kiss me but also wanted to wear lipstick, pink lipstick. I wore lipstick that day, but it was second hand, and I carried a tissue to wipe it off. There is an acceptable way for a man to wear lipstick, and this was it.           You'd think it would be a good thing that my wife would find a lipstick that was kiss proof, especially when you are as kissable and attractive as I am. I thought it was cool, but I just thought war paint was war paint. My wife became obsessed. She decided she wanted to sell it. I supposed an obsessio

          There are an estimated 7.5 Billion people on the earth today. Facebook has about 1.5 Billion users, Instagram has over 400 Million users, and Twitter has 320 Million users. There are approximately 2.22 Billion social media accounts active in these, the top three social media platforms. I became interested in social media as an LDS Missionary. I was in one of the initial pilot missions that attempted social media missionary work for my church. We saw an incredible boost in the work from social media usage. I recently read a book, The Tao of Twitter, that provides incredibly simple, but effective, ways to boost your business through social media. The book focuses on Twitter, but it much of what it teaches can be applied universally across all social media platforms. For those of you who don't want to read the book, I'll provide the basic, most important lessons from the book on social media use. 1. Targeted Connections 2. Meaningful Content 3. Authentic Hel

          Growing up, I wanted to be in the Olympics. I wanted to be an Olympic runner. I used to go to the end of my street and race against cars on the sidewalk and see how long I could keep up with them. I was an Olympian at that moment. I didn't get tired, but in fairness, you don't get tired when you're eight years old and following your dreams. I ran track and cross country in Jr. high and high school. I wasn't the fastest, but I always ran to beat the fastest, and sometimes I did.           I never became an Olympian, but I followed that dream until it wasn't a dream of mine any more. I was an all state track athlete, walked on to a division 1 track program, and helped my team win our conference championship by scoring points as a freshman. By this time though, I had developed other dreams-- dreams that became more important to me than an athletic career. The dream that took me away from track was to serve an LDS mission. When I got home the goal was to g

          There are all sorts of lousy YouTube videos out there. It is surprising that some of them get as many views as they do. Do you realize that the people who made these videos are making some good money from them? I make a bit more than $1 for every 1000 views I get on a video, so if you see videos on YouTube, you can start to imagine how much people are making from their monetized videos (To learn how to monetize your YouTube videos, watch this quick video tutorial ). Gangnum Style has the most views on YouTube right now with 2,780,694,120 views (as of 3/7/2017). Following my formula, they have made about $3,000,000 just from the add revenue from that. Then you have to consider that they are also selling copies of that song, and the video only helps them sell the music. The creators of that song and video are doing alright. It's hard to just start making videos though, and it's hard to imagine what people are going to watch.           If you remember, I posted a v

         As I write this, I’m sitting in Las Vegas. I see people here in casinos, mindlessly trying to get rich quick. Almost always, these people end up wasting their time and money and end up with nothing from their efforts. It was this same “get rich quick” attitude that led me to click on the “penny hoarder” link on Facebook. It said it had forty unique ways to start making money today. I was curious and so I clicked. The list started with some ridiculous ideas. I didn’t want to be a couch potato for three months for NASA, and although I’m a prime physical specimen, I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of donating sperm. The list continued by telling me about some apps, such as FOAP, Inbox Dollars, and ShopKick. I wasn’t too thrilled with these. Out of all of the apps the Penny Hoarder listed, the one that has been practical and good for me has been Receipt Hog. Although it’s not a get rich quick app, I love it. Receipt Hog:       Receipt Hog is a marketing research company