Why do YOU manufacture spend?

Continuing on with my puppies and kittens idea to draw new readers, that is a picture of my dog when he was a puppy.  He is half yorkie and half Havanese.  He’s nearly 4 years now and about 20 pounds now (a very big yorkie/Havenese).

I had read Matt’s post yesterday, and it resonated with me since it was similar to my post about how MS is a get-rich slow scheme.  There were fireworks on Twitter last night among the bloggers about the Ticketmaster $.50 AMEX deal – some bloggers like myself were able to “make” ~$200 within that 1 hour time period.  Matt and Philip believed we were better off doing something else that would have provided better long term returns.  I totally agree with that point.  However, he sorta went off the road when he suggested reselling as a better alternative.  Basically he pulled a ‘Crying Game’ on me.

If he had ended his post with ‘go read a book,’ I would have been satisfied.  Now I don’t know what Matt meant when he referred to reselling; I don’t think he meant reselling iPads or walking down aisles at Target (or maybe he did).  Maybe he meant private labeling.  If so, I am all for it!  Or let’s just take ‘reselling’ out of his post and just assume he meant to say to go do something else with a much higher rate of return than $200/hr.  That I also 100% agree with and have been struggling with of late.  This post isn’t to debate with Matt since he and I both agree that people should think long term and not these short term gains; maybe we both have different end games, but that’s another discussion.

I then had a Twitter exchange with Matt and basically told him that his readers don’t come to Saverocity for people to tell them to read books.  We come to Saverocity to learn about the Hobby aka applying for credit cards, reselling iPads, reselling gift cards, and these other small time hustles in the hobby.  This hit home because while I started my blog to talk about MS, I find myself increasingly more disinterested in MS and these small time offers.  So I sound like a hypocrite, which I fully acknowledge.  I’m just saying that MS isn’t the long term game plan here.  I think if you just apply for credit cards so you can earn nearly free travel or if you are using your miles and points for premium international travel, then I think that makes the most sense in this Hobby.  However, once you step over into the cashback realm, then this is no longer a hobby and has become an obsession…a part time job… a hustle… a scheme to make money.  Have you asked yourself lately why YOU manufacture spend?

My wife plays Clash of Clans pretty religiously.  I tell her that it’s a time-suck, and she’s not getting any long term value from it.  Her counter is, “I already THINK at work.  When I come home, I want to do mindless things.”  I’ve tried to argue with her numerous times, but if you’ve ever argued with your wife, you know you’ll never win.  So now I don’t bother trying to argue with her about playing Clash of Clans.  But then it hit me – I realized I was doing the same thing as my wife!  MS isn’t brain-intensive.  It doesn’t take a high school degree to go buy gift cards and load Redbird.  There is no barrier to entry in this scheme.   As long as you have basic math skills and a decent credit score, you’ll do fine in this game.   The only difference between my wife playing Clans and me doing MS is that I generate some extra side cash in my ‘mindless thing.’

Isn’t that why we were all buying those $.50 tickets on Ticketmaster last night?  Because it was so mindless and easy money?  I was actually watching my recorded “Bachelorette” finale while it happened.  Go #TeamBrit by the way.  So in reality, I made money while watching Kaitlyn choose her future ex-fiance.  Now of course I could have been reading a book, but I didn’t.  I chose to do a mindless thing like watching TV with my wife.  Aren’t most people inherently lazy and a creature of habit?  This is why my dentist keeps telling me I need to floss more.  Everyone likes to choose the path of least resistance.  Studying for the GMAT’s is hard.  Spending 2 hours on Saks.com trying to figure out what to resell for 12X Alaska miles is EASY.  Isn’t that why we all MS?  Because it’s easy and mindless?

So why do I MS and spend hours every month driving to Walmart/Target to make extra money?  I used to say that it helped make the mortgage payment.  Then I said it helped pay for my new car.  But eventually, I need to stop and ask myself what else I could be doing with my time, right?  I’m not going to make MS my full time job; I’d be bored out of my mind.  That’s why I have a full time job.  I want to THINK at work, and when I come home or have some free time, sure, I’ll MS for some extra spending money.  But there’s a limit to this right?  This isn’t going to get me to financial freedom.  I can’t retire on all my MS earnings.  I need to find a new idea/job/gig/scheme to get me to $250K or $500K a year.   Now whether it’s reselling or flipping houses or starting a company… just do something else that doesn’t have a cap.

I’ve come across so many different types of people at work.  There’s the hard-charging type A that is putting in crazy hours that is rising up the ranks.  There’s the 9-5 person who comes in at 9 sharp and leaves at 5 sharp.  Then there’s the people who are good at their job, but don’t love their job.  These people are comfortable with where they are and what they do; maybe they like it because it’s low stress or gives them a great work/life balance.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m in that last group.  I LIKE what I do, but I don’t LOVE it.  And from my interaction with some of you, I’m not the only one.  It seems more and more of you would gladly give up your job to do a ‘hustle’ that you’d enjoy more and that would pay you more.

I met a reader a couple of weeks ago and I was going over the hobby with her.  She’s graduating with her MBA degree from Michigan soon, but she says she wants to be a realtor instead.  I gave her the Rock eyebrow and thinking to myself, “Why would you spend 2 years to get your MBA to go become a realtor?”  Now I have nothing against realtors; remember, I wanted to become one at one point.  Btw, she also didn’t want to work on Saturdays, so not sure how that’s going to work out.  But my point was – here’s a very educated person who doesn’t enjoy what she’s doing, and would rather do something she thinks she’ll love more.  I have another buddy who was a Director at GoPro who left before they IPO’ed to start a passion-based movement/company called #Besomebody.  Reading his story will floor you, especially since he just got a 2nd round of $1M in funding.  Now, I’m not telling you to go quit your job and go make pottery or something.  I’m just saying… if you have the opportunity or time to do something that you love (or think you’ll love,) then maybe put your spare time into achieving that goal instead of reloading Redbirds.  Now think about that this weekend while I go make a run to Target.