YOURS TRULY COULD USE SOME MONEY MAKING IDEAS

5/23/13

Like many, if not most people, I have to find a way to increase my income.   My balance sheet is in great shape, but my income statement could use some help.

While my lifestyle is, to use far too weak a word, modest, I do have one daughter in college, another on her way, and a son just a few years behind his sisters.  I also have a wife who normally shares my frugality, except in one very expensive area…travel.  While I do not share her enthusiasm for travel  (It’s a heck of a lot more trouble and expense than it’s worth, and talk about a rapidly depreciating asset! I have to admit, though, it does have its moments; see the instantly, and still, seminal ODYSSEUS, AENEAS, AND ME, Insightful Pontificator, 7/11/11, widely regarded as one of my best works ever.), my enthusiasm for her continues and grows, so we will travel as long as it makes her happy.  And then there are the recurring expenses of life and home ownership…property taxes, upkeep, and the things that need replacing in a house as it approaches twenty years of age. 

Meanwhile, teaching is fun and rewarding and, if my student evaluations are any guide, I am quite good at it.   However, even during those semesters in which I teach a lot of classes (In the upcoming Fall semester, I will be teaching five at three different institutions.), “part time” faculty positions don’t pay much.  Full time faculty work would improve things only marginally and, without a PhD, my prospects in academia are limited. 

Four years after publication, my books now sell only sporadically.   There are more books inside me, both a continuation of the Chairman series and works on completely different topics, but those books haven’t worked their way out yet.   Further, given the time writing a book requires, I would have to do better financially on any future books than I did on the first two to justify the effort.  “Effort” probably is not the right word; I love writing the books.  But there are only so many hours in the day and, with the financial and personal demands of family life, it isn’t practical to devote the time a book requires with such an uncertain payoff.

This blog has been taking up a lot of time and is clearly, and almost exclusively, a labor of love.   There’s so little money in this it isn’t worth mentioning.  If I could make a living writing commentary, I would do it in less than a heart beat.  But blogging per se doesn’t provide such an avenue.

I haven’t traded actively to any great extent in several years.   Further, while I am a great investor and financial manager (hence our strong balance sheet), I am, like most people, not much of a trader.  Except for two really good years, I never did better trading than I did by following the balanced, patient approach to investing I espouse in this blog.   Most of the time, I did worse trading than I would have done simply investing the money in a balanced, and religiously rebalanced, portfolio.  I still put on a few trading positions, but more for intellectual challenge, entertainment, and intensifying focus on things that might help my investing or writing than for the money I could make, or lose, on my small trading positions.  Just as I would advise my readers, and those whom I help with their money, I never have devoted considerable money to trading.  I wouldn’t trust substantial money to my, or to anyone’s, trading prowess.  The “real” money is invested carefully, conservatively, and successfully…and it will stay that way.

The paying consulting business I once had has dried up.

While it sure sounds like it, I’m not complaining.   Everybody should have my financial problems.  But I am looking for ways to bring in more income.

So….what’s next?

Having been out of the conventional job market for 17 years, more or less, and no longer being of the age at which employers want to hire people, a “real” job in the lucrative sector of the economy (money management) in which I once worked, or in any sector, seems out of the question.  If I’m wrong on that, I’d sure like to hear about it, but I’m being realistic here.  

Clearly, I know quite a bit (certainly more than most of the “experts” who appear on CNBC or other financial media) about money, how it works, and how to make it and avoid losing it.   So financial consulting and advising is an avenue in which I could make a huge contribution to people’s or companies’ well beings.

As my readers know, I’m also a talented writer.   So writing and editing would seem to be a fruitful avenue to pursue.  I could write speeches for corporate types and politicians or ghost write for anyone.   Probably a more realistic aspiration is editing, especially editing of work of a financial, public policy, or spiritual nature.   (Those of you who read only my Mighty Quinn on Politics and Money (“MQPM”) might be surprised by the last on that list; take a look at my other blog, The Insightful Pontificator, in its post MQPM application.)  Indeed, I just helped a friend of mine with a business/public policy/non-profit proposal; when the deal for which the piece was written comes to fruition and he can speak more openly about it, I am sure that he, and the people who read the document, would be happy to provide me with references.   In fact, given the positions of the people who read and used the document, and my friend’s freely acknowledging my role in its preparation, editing/writing jobs may arise from that endeavor.

At any rate, it seems wise to use the forum this blog provides me to get the word out that I am looking for ways to make some more money and to ask my readers for ideas.   I am willing to at least listen to anything you might propose.  And, again, don’t get the wrong impression; no one is going to have any tag days for the Quinns.   But it would be nice, and I’d breathe a little easier, if the inflow were to pick up a bit.