Hustler Tips: Pay it with PayPal

Want to make some money while getting your bills paid? Make sure you pay everything with PayPal!

Here’s the scoop: many of you may know that PayPal offers 1% back on all of your purchases when you use their debit card. I don’t know why they do it, but I really don’t care either. because I’m getting some of my money back which is cool. Well, their debit card is FREE, and once you register to get one, you receive it in a couple of days. Here’s what you do from here to get the money:

• Make sure ALL of your purchases are done with the PayPal MasterCard. If you have another card that has better perks than 1% cash back, that’s cool, but if not, use this one.
• If possible, I would try to pay every bill from the rent payment on an apartment to your mortgage payment, car payment, etc. HOWEVER, make sure your creditors accept credit cards as a form of payment, AND that there is no fee to pay your bills this way. Many utilities charge a fee when you pay by credit card. Da Hustler hates that they can get away with this, because I have a merchant account to accept credit cards and in the terms and conditions, I cannot charge customers a fee solely to recoup the fees I have to pay to accept the cards. Furthermore, since I see it as the cost of doing business, I think these merchants should just eat it instead of adding to their profit margin.
• Once the bills are paid, check your PayPal account for the “Chargeback Bonus.” DO NOT SPEND THIS MONEY! Sent it to a online savings account, such as one with ING and earn interest on your bonuses. Also do not allow the money to sit in your PayPal account for even one day, because you could have been earning money with it. If you don’t have an ING account, send me an e-mail, and I’ll send you a link to get you an extra $25 in your account when you deposit $250!
• Getting $0.01 back on $1 doesn’t seem like much at first, but it adds up. If you spend $2500/month, you’ll get back $25. While it is small, this adds up to an extra $300/year plus interest if you use this method. (If you don’t want that, Da Hustler will take it!)
• To make things easier, you can setup your PayPal account to automatically take the money from your checking account in case your PayPal balance is too low to cover a charge. This way you can still have the money come from your main account while getting the benefit of the 1% cash back.

Once you do it a few times, you’ll start to get the hang of it, and it will be a transparent part of your day. Keep Hustlin’!

Hustle Hoarding: Presidential Cheapskate

Five dollars.

It’s so many things to so many different people. It can be the amount of tax on a purchase, it is the average cost of a meal at a fast food place, and it is the amount that we’ll have to start placing into vending machines in the airport for a 20oz soda in about ten years, not to mention a gallon of gas.

Five dollars.

When I think about what I do with this seemingly insignificant amount of money, I cringe. I ate lunch yesterday @ Burger King, the total being $3.21. Since I use the Keep the Change program w/ Bank of America, they round that up to $4, so in my mind, it’s basically five dollars. When I go to eat at a restaurant, this miniature Abraham Lincoln in my pocket represents so much more to a waiter or waitress. My night of splurging is their livelihood, and some of them definitely know the value of that particular dead president.

Five dollars.

We know what five dollars is, but let’s take a look at what it isn’t. A regular ticket at a movie theatre. An appropriate contribution to church for a 45 year-old Wall Street broker. The cost to wash your car at a full-service location. A parking space in a downtown area. Five dollars is a lot of things to a lot of people, but in these examples it just doesn’t cut the mustard. So why is Da Hustler so stuck on this one denomination of money?

Quite simply: because it holds power.

You can change your life five dollars at a time, every day. When I started thinking about the power of Abe, I realize it was time to use it for my benefit. The simplest way I could think of was just to save it. Don’t spend it. Hoard it. It works for you a lot better when it is close to you, and you can’t be close to something that you are always giving away.

Da Hustler is doing just that – save my five dollars – and you can too! Just think about what you spend this money on every day: sure you have to eat, but do you absolutely need to eat those meals that cost, well, five dollars? You can eat healthier and simpler by using the dollar menu at a lot of places, and getting water as your beverage. Now you’ve just cut $2.00 or more from the cost of your meal, and you’re nearly halfway to the goal. What else can you cut? Morning coffee? Jelly doughnut? An unhealthy midday snack? That pack of cigarettes? Take a look at what you spend your money on each day, and I bet there is something that you can do without.

Voila! You’ve just saved your five dollars! Now what are you going to do with it? Well, unless or until you have built-up enough discipline to place yourself on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly savings plan, I recommend you place this five dollar savings in a jar, piggy bank, or transfer it to a savings account daily. Da Hustler does this, and I’ve found that it forces you to really examine what you spend your money on, plus gets you in the habit of saving your own money more regularly. The caveat is that you cannot touch the money that you save! You have to basically forget that it is there. Let’s look at the savings that you can realize after a whole year of this:

$5 day ~ $150/month

$150 x 12 = $1800/year

Not too bad, but even this doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of people to save on a regular basis. Let’s do what hustlers do and make this even more attractive: keep the same formula for saving, but add an extra five dollars the next month to your daily savings plan, and another five the month after that. Not only will you have to save more money, but you may have to also make more as well! But of course, that’s what hustlers do! Now here is the earnings with the revised example:

Month 1: $150 saved

Month 2: $300 saved that month

Month 3: $450 saved that month

Month 6: $900 saved that month

Month 12: $1800 saved that month

Over the course of the entire year, you would have saved $11,700! That’s a small car! (can you say Kia, Civic or Scion?) Not only will you save a boatload of money, but by the end of a year’s time you will be in a totally different mindset, because you would have forced yourself to find ways to make more money to save! Can you imagine being able to save $60/day? That means you would make a whole lot more than that to be able to put back that much and be comfortable. And one thing Da Hustler knows about money: the more you have, the more you really don’t want to spend it. This is why you rarely see millionaires going on extravagant shopping sprees; when you know you have the ability to purchase or do something, the appeal is that much less. Make this kind of thinking your goal, and you’ll be amazed at how much your life can change.

Five dollars at a time.

Da Hustle Is Back!

Yes! You read it right: Da Hustle Is Back!

After months and months of hiatus, Da Hustler is back and better than ever!

Welcome back, Hustler.

For all my readers and fans out there, I missed you all so much, but it’s good to be back in the fold again, giving you the advice that needs to be given! A lot has changed since my last official “hustle” posting (officially 7 months, 21 days ago as of 4/7/08), including gas prices that have surged past the psychological $3/gallon mark, fears of the dreaded “R” word (recession), and a new version of WordPress that is much different than version 2.1 or 2.2 that existed when I first started the site!

First off, the impending recession. So what? If one is on the horizon, fine. If not, fine still. This doesn’t affect true hustlers, because we just adjust to the present conditions, and keep it moving. So don’t be pulled in or affect by the “fear mongering” that the media is trying to place in to people’s minds. I say, if it’s not an incoming missile from a hostile nation, an invasion of Earth by some real, bona fide aliens, or the coming of God himself, it’s probably getting too much media attention anyway, and if you’re watching TV too much, you’re not out hustling, which hits home and you should worry then!

Now gas.

If nothing else, this alone should inspire ALL of you out there to get ya hustle on! Da Hustler’s ride takes premium gasoline, and let me tell you, it hurts me every time I visit the gas station, no matter how much money I have in my pocket! I’ll post more info on what I have done to alleviate the pressure, and I promise it will be something that most of you all would not expect.

And finally, without further ado, I present the return of the hustle.

So, in anticipation of all the questions some of you may have, I’ve included a short FAQ to explain my whereabouts and the future of the site:

1. Where da #&@! have you been?
   Great question! I’ve truly been on hiatus, experiencing some of the highs and lows that come with life. One of the great things about being away is that I have gone through the ups and downs of owning and maintaining a website, and with that knowledge I am better able to help my fellow hustlers.Remember reading on many sites how you will get a creative burst of energy when you first start out, then you will not post as much, all the while thinking that would not happen to My New Hustle.Boy was I wrong!

   I will outline what happens in a future post, not only to help stop anyone else from doing what I did, but also so that you can notice if you see yourself embarking on the same road, and some of the traits that are associated with it. It’s not an entirely bad thing – kinda like how your parents tell you about the things they did so you don’t follow in their footsteps, but you almost have to follow in their footsteps to either end the temptation in your mind, or better understand why they said what they said in the first place. But the important thing is to hop right back on that horse and ride it to the end of the race. We all stumble and fall, but it’s not the fact that you fell – it’s what you do about it that matters the most.

2. Can we expect to see more of the same great posts as before?
   Of course! I’ve been doing more research and employing some techniques into my daily hustle, and I can’t wait to share those things with you all. Some are very unconventional, but I promise if you are willing to step outside of the box, you will rise a lot faster than the average American (and that’s saying a LOT!) Also coming back will be the themed days, such as Hustler’s Inspiration, Hustle Highlights and Hustle Tips, along with brand new ones that are sure to shock your mind! (but shortly thereafter, satisfy your wallet!)
3. Will you ever leave us again?
   When I hit my first billion, there is a good chance I will be on an island somewhere letting life pass me by for a couple of weeks. I’ll bring a long a camera to tape the footage and show you guys though.

   I don’t plan to have an absence as severe as the last, but I promise I will let you guys know before it happens, and give you some articles and/or assignments to do while I am gone.

4. So what is the site going to be like now?
   I have a lot of great plans for this site! It will be more interactive, have more great content, and be organized in a way that you can access older content faster and easier. The layout will also change as I am planning to get the site professionally redone, kinda like what ProBlogger did with his site. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!

Until then, feel free to let me have it by leaving some comments below.