I was reading about this person who was making some decent part time money buy simply taking other people’s old belongings that they no longer want, on public sites such as Craigslist, which he would then turn around and simply sell it to others who would want it. The funny thing was reading comments how people thought this was not right since he got it for free and therefore he shouldn’t be reselling them.

When I think about it personally, the guy did essentially do the work in taking other people’s “junk” since they didn’t want it anymore. I think the only time I would consider it wrong is if the person asked for the item in a misleading way such as wanting it for his personal use because he claimed that he couldn’t afford one only to see him sell it for money.

I think the main reason people get upset is mostly due to that “Why didn’t I think of that before” type of scenario. In some ways you can say people save money by just giving it away too as it usually costs money to throw away items that are large or require some special way of disposing it. And hey, odds are most people won’t want to go through the trouble of reselling items. So if you really want to, you could always enter into that kind of a market yourself.

Same thing with those free items that you get from places like trade shows. It’s not uncommon to see people sell them at a garage sale. I have seen people try to collect every single free goods in places like those just to try and sell it to someone who is a die hard enthusiast. Age old supply and demand and in this case it’s almost like the person is running a very low budget retail operation where the supplier gives free stuff for you to sell.

Now that summer is almost over pretty much every high demand summer item is dropping like a rock in prices it seems. Example, fans dropping to like $10 and sunscreen lotion for a dollar or two. For things like the sunscreen lotion it can definitely make a lot of sense just to buy a couple now for use next year. Of course, make sure things like the expiry date is all good.

This type of saving method takes about one year of diligent shopping and stocking up in order for the full cycle to work of course. Example, in the summer time heating products will probably be cheap so you would buy it then for the upcoming winter. Basically, the key is to try and avoid buying things the last minute when it is in demand. It’s almost like doing all of your Christmas shopping way before the mad rushes arrive along with the markups.

Unless you are the one selling the item then that is a different story. And who knows, stocking up on items when they are cheap may give you a good opportunity to resell them for cheaper than average store prices and still make a profit when they are in demand.

So here was a scenario that is kind of interesting based on a real life situation. Let’s say there is a building that costs one million dollars. The two owners decided to part ways. The situation, one person was very attached to the building and wanted to buy the other half of it from his old partner. The thing is, he can’t afford the $500,000.

So this was a real option. Essentially, a third party was brought into the picture and let’s say it is yourself. Since the owner was getting old, what he proposed to do was mortgage half the building as collateral to get the money to buy the other half from the current partner. Afterwards, he would sign the whole ownership of the building to you with the stipulation being that he can use a small space inside until he passes away. Essentially, that means you would now own the entire building for half price in many ways.

As crazy as it sounds, would you take it? While financially it’s kind of like a person giving you $500,000, it is a lot of change that you would have to do considering you are essentially going to be in a large debt. For me it would really come down to my ability on being able to find ways to generate an income using that building to be able to pay for it. Cause having to alter your entire life to get this may have a more negative affect overall. Like saying you can own this very expensive car, but it is no good if you can’t even afford your other essentials in life.

Bet that title resulted in some heads turning. Recently I was asked to look at a person’s financial statements for the month. Basically, at the end of the month he had about $500 of spending money left based on an approximate $2500/month in income. Here was the interesting thing with this I thought. All the key expenses such as the house utilities, insurances and property taxes came up to about $800 to $1000 a month. Then, apparently a whopping $1000/month is budgeted to be spent on groceries. For the record, there are about three mouths to feed.

I was just thinking of it from a percentage point of view and how a minimum of 40% of the monthly budget is spent on food to buy at the grocery store. This is not including when they do say dine out as that comes out of the $500 pool. While of course everyone needs to eat and all, this kind of makes me think how because we classify something as an essential that we sometimes tend to just spend too much.

In an extreme financially savvy situation, I would say the revolve your meals around what is on sale mentality would probably help you to eliminate spending too much on food. Cause usually when you give yourself a budget like this you tend to just spend it all as it is in what you consider a justifiable and necessary category.

A common point that I noticed in this situation too was that they didn’t really become money conscious until the funds dipped below a certain number. Example, if $1000 is the budget, the first week they would buy almost anything and everything that they want. It’s not until there is say about $200 left until they stop and try to find things that are on sale only.

One way I always like to think about it is that when I go to places like the grocery store I am doing so mostly out of convenience and variety. Example, if I wanted a cup full of berries I can go to the store and pay say $3 or find an area that grows it in the wild and pick it for free. Of course things like meat is a little different due to my lifestyle as I can’t exactly just find say a cow and process it as with that it is way cheaper to just buy it from a store, but again with that it is not really a necessity though.

This almost reminds me of bottled water in some ways. Yes, you do need water to live….but buying bottled water should be treated more as an unnecessary expense I’d say if you live in places like North America for the most part. I think that mentality would help with budgeting too. For me personally if I ever want an item that I clearly identify as not being a necessity that costs a lot of money I usually say to myself that to do so I must sacrifice something else.

Example, let’s pretend I did buy a bottle of water for $1. To make it up, one day if I need to go somewhere I am going to say walk there to avoid spending money on transportation to make up for that dollar. Or let’s say with food. If there are items that are clearly on sale like say a whole chicken and for some odd reason I wanted to buy this huge lobster instead at full price I’m not going to just consider that as an essential food expense. In many ways that is over indulging to be more classified as unnecessary.

Of course everything heavily depends on how much you make financially in life as for some maybe a lobster is the equivalent to buying like a chocolate bar and so caviar would be more of the unnecessary for you. But if you are actively trying to save more, rethinking about the things like your food budget and clearly making a system for what is non essential for you based on money can probably save you a lot.

Today I read an e-mail that had a note about how a person’s business grew entirely though word of mouth and that the operation started in a simple home. It continues to grow today and so he wanted to try and get more word of mouth advertising.

This is definitely one of the more effective methods that can be very cost effective too. Not only that, you are heavily rely on the quality of your offering to convince people to essentially advertise it for you. It’s one of those things too where just focusing on offering something great can translate into a lot of additional advertising.

Of course, some people may argue that they know a ton of people that offer something great yet they still fall short and say go out of business. I think the important thing is that if you are relying on advertising through word of mouth, don’t be afraid to ask for it. Don’t just assume the buzz will naturally spread. Tell people that you want to attract say more business and so that way you are actually taking an active role in getting the word out.

Really, it’s not uncommon for people to simply assume that you are doing great and so they won’t actively feel the need to tell people about it unless the other party asks first. Just ask for it.