Working Hard vs Working Smart & Investing Your Time + Money Into The Right Things

[Kman]

I'm going to tell you guys a bit about me and what I invest my money and time in + have a little mini rant

 

When I was 23 I was unemployed (I'm 28 now)

 

My brother decided he would help me out and gave me a part-time job doing SEO for his business website. I knew nothing about SEO at the time so I spent the next few months reading about it, especially on a certain  SEO forum, talking to knowledgable people who helped me learn a lot. 

 

Learning about SEO eventually got me interested in expiring domains; expiring domains sometimes have very strong link profiles, so I was hoping I could use them to help rank my websites

 

Learning about expiring domains then got me interested in just domain names on their own when I found out how much a quality domain name sells for, so I the started investing a lot of my time into learning about domaining. 

 

Fast forward to now

 

The last 12 months I've made over £20,000 profit selling domains+ I'm sitting on a lot more quality names

 

I also make a passive income of £1000 a month from adsense via a website I own. 

 

I can honestly say I do not work hard at all for this money, I'm a very lazy person.

 

Now the mini rant 

 

When I watch videos on youtube about "How To  Keep On Buying PM's When You're Broke" and they talk about work harder, do overtime at your job, buy the cheapest kind of silver.. I think

 

1. Why buy precious metals when you're broke, there are much better things to invest your money in.

 

2. Why work harder at a job you don't like and use a large chunk of your life to make a rubbish wage

 

I see people on here say they don't invest more than 10% of their money into PMs and I think that is exactly right, it's good to have fluid money set aside for the right investments.

 

This post is not to brag btw, I'm sure there are people reading this who make much more money than I do.

 

I was lucky to be enlightened to the kind of money you can make online.

 

It makes we wonder about all the other money making investments I'm not currently enlightened to, of which I know there are a ton..

 

Summing up..

 

If all you're doing is working for someone else for a basic wage, it's not a good use of your potential, so I don't know why people advise it. 

 

If you're spending all your extra income on precious metals to sit on it's not a good use of that money; it's not the worst use, but far from the best. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ares]

I've been looking at a FTSE 100 tracker fund for the long term. We're barely out of the financial crisis and the FTSE 100 is as healthy as its ever been with something like 6% CAGR since its inception.

[craig12]

I own my own carpet business and can say I like it  pays a good wage  , better  than listening to the crap at allied carpets, and carpetright I used to take, , I dabbled in shares and lost  , followed the tip sheets  which were crap I have to admit im in p,ms for pure profit I ,m not a collector ,  ive posted some threads on buying p.ms at lower rates  , only to be told  dream on  , but hey the master of this is apparently  silver fish  in the usa  and he repeats to us all  on e bay  make a best offer, send them a private message saying I,ll give you spot for all your silver,  I only do what others tell you to do

[Danny-boy]

ive posted some threads on buying p.ms at lower rates , only to be told dream on

I don't believe you have ever been told to "dream on".

You were, in fact, pointed to a source for silver cheaper than your desired rate.

You were told that for "better quality bullion" within the UK, that you may need to increase your buy price.

It's pretty simple really.

[ChrisSilver]

Kman, have you ever read a book called 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' if you haven't I highly suggest you do.

[craig12]

a figure of speech , lighten up you highlighted it in inverted commers I didnt

[Danny-boy]

a figure of speech , lighten up you highlighted it in inverted commers I didnt

Also known as quotation marks, as I was quoting what you had said.

[ChrisSilver]

a figure of speech , lighten up you highlighted it in inverted commers I didnt

I believe Danny was using quotation marks in the correct form within the English language, to quote from someone else.

[craig12]

this feels like the classic car forums, everyone watching a thread to pounce

[ChrisSilver]

this feels like the classic car forums, everyone watching a thread to pounce

I was just trying to correct the misunderstanding. It's pretty easy to interpret written text in a way which was not intended by the author.

I didn't mean to post just after Danny already had, didn't realise he also posted.

Anyway, back to the topic, Kman made some very good points and anyone who agrees with Kman's way of thinking should definitely read 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' you will find it a very good read and may even change the way you think.

[HighlandTiger]

@kman, when I was 28, I was earning wayyyyyyyyyy more money than you, (and that was 20 odd years ago), and I thought exactly like you do now. However 20 years later, I can confirm I was wrong, as is so much of your post.

 

I have been all round the world thanks to a previous job. I've been on National and International TV, radio, national and international press, articles in mags and books. None of which was planned but just happened and I earned bugger all for it.......................but it has led to where I am today 

 

I've had well paying jobs, and good earning businesses that I hated doing, even though the cash rolled in. So I stopped all that, life is too short, so now, today, I have one of the best jobs in the world, I get crap pay, and I've never been happier. (although I say crap pay, I actually have more disposable income than I ever have had in the past).

 

 

Hindsight is a great thing, and If only I knew about pm's in the past, I would have ploughed every penny I had spare into it. Rather than pishing it all away on things I didn't really need. I could have had a stack worth £500,000 at todays prices, without batting an eyelid.

[Kman]

@kman, when I was 28, I was earning wayyyyyyyyyy more money than you, (and that was 20 odd years ago), and I thought exactly like you do now. However 20 years later, I can confirm I was wrong, as is so much of your post.

 

 

What do you find wrong? 

 

Or if there is too much wrong to list, what do you find the most wrong

[HighlandTiger]

LOL, A list as long as your arm, I can tell you. But the main one, is never take anything for granted. Just because you are earning good money now, don't expect to earn good money all the time. I can guarantee sometime in the future it will all go pear shaped, and you will wish that you'd put a little extra by, instead of going on the extra holiday or buying that slightly more expensive car, or spending a fortune on that good looking lass, hoping she'll jump in bed with you.   

[ChrisSilver]

HT is right in that money won't last forever, a profitable business one year could easily be a loss making business the next. So it's important to keep investing into business and developing new products/services or improving the ones you already have to stay ahead of the game. At the same time it's important to also put some money aside (maybe in the form of precious metals and property) just incase one day the business stops being profitable so you have sometime to fall back on. But hopefully by then you have already moved into another more successful business industry. Anyone has the ability to work for themselves and build something, just takes a lot of hard work, as well as a healthy apatite for risk.

[HighlandTiger]

Anyone has the ability to work for themselves and build something, just takes a lot of hard work, as well as a healthy apatite for risk.

The fact we are all here on a PM forum, shows that risk taking is in our genes. I can honestly say i have taken a risk/leap of faith on a number of occasions and I've usually come up smelling of roses. Not always, but usually. 

[Kman]

LOL, A list as long as your arm, I can tell you. But the main one, is never take anything for granted. Just because you are earning good money now, don't expect to earn good money all the time. I can guarantee sometime in the future it will all go pear shaped, and you will wish that you'd put a little extra by, instead of going on the extra holiday or buying that slightly more expensive car, or spending a fortune on that good looking lass, hoping she'll jump in bed with you.   

 

I don't spend too frivolously, only really on food

 

I'm a pretty simple living guy

 

I have healthy savings of which some is money, some is domains

 

If I put all of my spare money into PMs now id end up with less PMs in the future, because I would lose the ability to take advantage of other better investments, of which a small % will be put into PMs

[HighlandTiger]

I don't spend too frivolously, only really on food

 

 

Oh yeah......!!

[garthy]

When I watch videos on youtube about "How To  Keep On Buying PM's When You're Broke" and they talk about work harder, do overtime at your job, buy the cheapest kind of silver.. I think

 

1. Why buy precious metals when you're broke, there are much better things to invest your money in.

 

2. Why work harder at a job you don't like and use a large chunk of your life to make a rubbish wage

 

If you're spending all your extra income on precious metals to sit on it's not a good use of that money; it's not the worst use, but far from the best. 

 

Hi Kman

 

I see your point but unfortunately a vast majority of the population aren't clued up at all on economics and how money works, at school we're taught to sit up straight, don't be late, follow orders, recite answers we've already been taught, basically to become a parrot with zero creative thinking, all these attributes will make us great employees and nothing else. 

We have to first get in debt to prove we deserve a loan, we're really being taught how to get into debt, debt is the money of slaves and that's exactly where they want us.

 

I'm sure pretty much everyone on this forum is self taught when it comes to money, where it comes from and how it works, but why?  I know I had to learn everything from scratch, have you ever wondered why we were never taught how the banking system works, how money's created, about the gold standard, the value of gold and silver, the great depressions, the history of the rothschilds, they (who ever they are) don't wan't us to know these things because if we did their game would be up.

 

ok I need to get to the point, I personally don't have a problem with people spending their hard earned cash on PM's, they're actually for once taking their life into their own hands and not relying on the governments and the banking elites to tell them where to put their cash, yes they could be a little more savvy but if they weren't buying silver they'd be out buying more crap they don't need, I tell you I've wasted my breath so many times trying to tell my friends and family where to put their money, I hate to say it but I've now given up  

But they still moaned at me for not telling them about the royal mail shares, you just can't win.

 

So yeah I do agree with you but unfortunately we were molded at an early age and most don't break the mold, but buying silver in my mind is definitely a step in the right direction           

[Kman]

So yeah I do agree with you but unfortunately we were molded at an early age and most don't break the mold, but buying silver in my mind is definitely a step in the right direction           

 

 

I think it's about being enlightened to opportunities, the world is full of them just we don't have the knowledge to see them in plain view or seek them out and take advantage

 

A good example would be sovereigns, a layman like me looking at table full of them wouldn't be able to pick out the 1937 Edward worth £516,000 from the rest that are worth £200 

[a_a]

I'm at a bit of a crossroads right now. A dodgy back means I have had to give up my quite low-paid but highly enjoyable manual job. I have been unemployed for a couple of months now and at nearly 30 am very aware of the need to choose carefully where to go from here - train for a comfortable, secure office job like accounting, a dull life where the bills will always be paid - or set up some kind of business.

 

I have always tried to make my hobbies make money for me - I have got a couple of recent ebay coin bargains which will be going straight back on there once they arrive for a 100% flip - but never had the kind of hobby that I could turn into a full blown business.

 

I realised recently I'm probably not going to make decent money working for other people, unless I do some proper education - but university means lots of time and money. Think how many small business attempts I could try with a van, a computer and £30k in three years as opposed to doing a degree. Deep down I've always known I have wanted to be my own boss in something. But what? It's difficult but I am sure it will present itself before long!

[Pipers]

a_a   A family member of mine lost her job through a work injury (spine injury) she now sells a lot of beauty products on Ebay.  I think she had a lot of help from the DWP because she's disabled. grants etc.  

[a_a]

Yeah that's a great idea, mail order. I am in a similar situation to your family member, but not as bad by the sounds of it, had been leaning towards some kind of travelling specialist and hadn't considered working from home. I have had a couple of ideas already, cheers!

[Carpe Diem]

I'm at a bit of a crossroads right now. A dodgy back means I have had to give up my quite low-paid but highly enjoyable manual job. I have been unemployed for a couple of months now and at nearly 30 am very aware of the need to choose carefully where to go from here - train for a comfortable, secure office job like accounting, a dull life where the bills will always be paid - or set up some kind of business.

 

I have always tried to make my hobbies make money for me - I have got a couple of recent ebay coin bargains which will be going straight back on there once they arrive for a 100% flip - but never had the kind of hobby that I could turn into a full blown business.

 

I realised recently I'm probably not going to make decent money working for other people, unless I do some proper education - but university means lots of time and money. Think how many small business attempts I could try with a van, a computer and £30k in three years as opposed to doing a degree. Deep down I've always known I have wanted to be my own boss in something. But what? It's difficult but I am sure it will present itself before long!

 

I can empathise a lot with what you're saying here mate.  The burning feeling that the clock never stops ticking and that the need for financial and employment security grows as every day passes, whilst wanting to go your own way seems to be a natural path your move towards. 

 

Personally, I think you should be very careful about any education you do.  After applying and studying for a degree, then looking for a job you're looking at min. 3 - 4 years before finding a job.  Research shows that most people never even land a job in the industry related to their studies either, and who knows what the job market will be like then.  

 

You have talents and abilities more than others.  You must know what they are.  They are often right in front of your face without you realising it.  Whatever your skills are where you exceed others', you need find which of those are ones that you enjoy building.  Then connect those to possible self-employment opportunities by looking niches in the industry/market where your unique skills are required.  

 

Before making any decisions, I'd take the time to fully reflect on what motivates you and what you do better than others.  Build everything up from there.

[Kman]

Just thought I would say what I got upto the last 30 days domain wise, not to brag but the point being at the end

 

These are all co.uk domains

 

Domains Id bought:

 

Bought Mar 2014 for £450, sold last week for £2000

 

Bought July 2014 £750, sold a week later £1050

 

Domains id dropcaught (so £6 registration fee)

 

Caught Feb 2014, sold yesterday £450

 

Caught July 2014 sold £250

 

Caught July 2014 sold £125

 

------

 

So In the last 30 days I've sold £3875 worth of domains id spent £1218 on in total

 

So 3x's my money

 

If I spent £1218 on silver what would i have now?

 

This is why I don't think it's ideal at all to go all in on precious metals. 

 

+ I started out with domains by spending £50, all the money I have made/reinvested in domains since is from that original £50.

 

It's something you should want to learn about. 

 

ps. the domains id paid a chunk of money for, I always knew I could get my money back any time I liked selling wholesale to another domainer, but I also knew if the right buyer came along they could sell for much more

 

. 

[Ares]

I'm working on a gaming YouTube channel, I play video games a reasonable amount if I have time and there's a reasonable audience around to make it workable.

It's something that'll take a few years to get going but the potential to get paid even small amounts for a hobby I do for my own enjoyment anyway is pretty neat.