How A Beer Swillin', V8 Drivin', Tire Burnin'
Redneck Laughs at High Gas Prices!
"I really don't care if gas prices keep goin' up! I'm
not gonna change, 'cuz I've found a solution! Ha, and I didn't
even graduate!"
Here's the problem: I like to drive a truck and I'm a redneck.
It is what it is - there's no changin' me.
I like to drive a big, mean truck with the largest engine I can
find and the loudest exhaust possible so that the ground shakes
when I drive by (ya, people in the city don't like me much).
But the problem is that fuel prices are ridiculous. And not just
a little.
I'm sure unless you've been living under a rock for the past little
while, that gas prices have begun to affect you too. I mean, do
you know how much it costs to fill a truck every few days? The
fact of the matter is that the rising fuel costs have been cramping
my lifestyle - actually, they have literally been trying to take
away my freedom of choice as far as the type of vehicle I want
to drive.
No one wants to work 2-3 days a week just to pay for their fuel
for that week.
But I found a solution. A REAL solution.
No, I didn't drive any less. I didn't carpool any more. I didn't
buy any additives for my fuel, and I didn't spend any money on
trying to convert my truck to run on some sort of water or biodiesel.
Any of those options may be a solution, but they don't really
address the problem that rising fuel prices make.
The real problem is not necessarily the rising fuel prices, but
the added expense of running a vehicle. I know, I know you say
that they are the same thing. But when you actually take a step
back and evaluate the whole problem (I can't believe I'm even
talking like this), you realize that they aren't.
The problems that we often face in life are usually because of
prices going up around us, which takes a larger chunk out of our
already small paycheques than a starved gator.
So, even if we find a solution to try and combat rising fuel prices,
it may only be a quick fix, that only works until the next time
prices increase.
Rather than trying to find a way to limit the use of my truck,
or conserve fuel I understood that the REAL issue was not in the
rising fuel prices, but in the lack of money I had. If I had more
money, and fuel prices went up, it wouldn't matter as much as
it does now.
I could talk about that for hours in my rocking chair on the front
porch as I cleaned my gun and drank some beer: If I had more money,
and real estate prices went up, it wouldn't matter as much. If
I had more money, and I wanted to buy a new washer and dryer,
it wouldn't matter as much. If I had more money, and I wanted
to take a vacation in a little palm-leaved hut on a white sandy
beach, where the water is crystal clear, the sun is hot as a june
bride, and the short, smiling little boy serving my drinks' name
is some form of "Pedro", it wouldn't matter as much.
I set out to fix the situation. It was more of an experiment,
to be honest. And with any form of experiment, I decided there
had to be some rules set up.
So, I sat down to do some brainstorming, with my thinking cap
on (it's actually a beer hat, but I get all kinds of great ideas
when I wear it).
First, I thought of the different ways to start making money.
I thought of real estate investing, but where I live right now,
the market is completely dead. So I crossed off real estate. Then
I thought of investing in stocks. But, let's be honest, unless
you particularly enjoy pain, the stock market has been downright
ugly. So I ran away from stocks.
The only other way that I came up with was starting some form
of business. So, with my other two options crossed off, I felt
that this was the only other opportunity I had to potentially
make some money and get back to my tire screeching, v8 revving,
off-roading ways without having to sacrifice my entire paycheque
just to keep myself in the style I had grown up in.
So it was back to the drawing board to figure out how to start
a business.
I made a list of things that I wanted my business to do:
1) Make money - I know everyone says this, but I wanted to keep
this in mind with every decision I made. Saving the baby seals
is great, and public service is fine, but neither of those will
keep my truck on the road.
2) Require very little money to start - I wanted to make money,
not spend it. Frankly, if I had more money - enough to really
invest in a business - I wouldn't be worried about spending a
little more on gas money.
3) Require very little time and effort to start and run - As you
can tell, I want to spend my time having a good time, not chained
to my work. I mean, I already have a job at a meat packing plant,
and if I am going to add more work to my plate, I want it to be
as little as possible.
4) Make money - I guess I already mentioned that. I mean, I'm
not necessarily shooting for the moon (although if I did manage
to hit the moon and have a ton of moon money fall down on me,
I wouldn't complain) - I want to be realistic. So, my goal was
to pay for my gas bill and a few other expenses, so I decided
to set my goal at $700 a month.
I did some research on starting a business as I smoked a Captain
Black. And let me tell you, there are a lot of expenses in starting
a business - so many of them didn't meet the rules I made above.
And the ones that weren't expensive to start, were usually service-related
businesses (not product related businesses), which take an insane
amount of time away from your life. Finally, I found what seemed
to be the answer: start an internet business.
I actually found this option by mistake. In doing my research,
around my 3rd Captain Black or so, I ran across a website where
some guy said he'd show me how to set up an internet business.
I figured that he'd want my right arm in exchange for it, but
I was lucky enough to get some sort of introductory deal. The
price: $5 a month. I've been on his list for a couple months now
and it's really good. It's saved me hours of research - which
I have been able to use mudboggin in my truck, and yes, drinkin
more beer. I figure $5 is real cheap to start a business.
So, I started to use some of the advice he gave me, and I realized
that I didn't want to sell physical products. It takes too much
time and effort to do it. And, as my girlfriend's brother told
me (he's goin to college, so he's smart), prices to ship products
will increase because fuel prices are increasing. So people will
buy less.
I decided to sell something that didn't cost anything to ship:
digital products (again, not my idea - I got this idea from the
$5 guy). The more I thought about this, the more it met the rules
I had set up before: low cost to start up, not much time to run
(it looked like nearly everything - including product delivery
- could be automated), and it would make money.
Finally, it looked as though I would be on my way to terrorizing
the streets again with my obnoxious redneck truck (ooh, how the
neighbors love me). So I did more research (ya, more research
- how exciting), into how I could continue living the dream of
driving my increasingly expensive to run truck. Essentially, what
I did was set up a website where I sell a digital product, and
after following a few steps, the money has started to roll in.
I'm currently on pace to sell just under $700 this month, which
(once you subtract the small start up costs) leaves me a little
short of my goal.
But I've got a few more ideas that I could start (the $5 guy gives
me 3-4 ideas a week) and if I spent a few minutes fine-tuning
everything like I did with the carb on my truck, everything should
run like a dream, and I should be able to hit (and maybe even
pass) the $700 mark!!! Ha, take that high gas prices! This is
one redneck you can't stop!!!
But who am I kidding? I'm pretty lazy, and a few bucks less than
$700 covers my gas bill, so I'll probably just leave it at that.
All this research and fine-tuning is kind of a pain in the butt,
but
In total it has taken me less time to learn and set this little
side biz up than it takes for me to plan and organize a mud-bogging
4x4 camping weekend (which may or may not include a few brews....
I'm just saying), but I'd still rather be outside than in front
of a computer.
So I know you're just dying to know what kind of product I'm selling.
I'm not telling. Ha, you didn't think I'd let you know and see
my profits drain away faster than the fuel in my truck's excessively
large gas tank, did you?
No, rather than letting you know what product I'm selling, I'll
tell you exactly what I did to make this extra side money. I don't
want to send you away empty handed, after all!
First, I chose a product to sell. It was easy for me, as I found
a report I had written a few years back for school, and I just
had someone give it a quick edit and add some graphics, save it
as a pdf file, and I was set.
Finally, my school was actually good for something!
Then, once I had the product, I needed a website to sell it from.
I quickly found out that I needed a website (the actual pages
designed), a name for the site (a domian name) and a place for
the website to live (or whatever they call it) so I needed website
hosting.
For the website pages, it was really simple - I just copy and
pasted a site together (actually, the $5 guy gave me a free site
to use, so I just changed a couple things on it). Nothing fancy,
all I wanted to do was sell my report. If people didn't want to
buy my report, they could leave, because I only wanted buyers.
Luckily, I found a free report online that told me how to write
up a quick sales page.
Once I found a good hosting company, I slapped up my page, began
promoting it a bit (using some of $5 guy's ideas), and the money
started to come in!
All in all, here's what it took to get me going:
1) A domain name - $9
2) Hosting - about $5 a month
3) Product - nothing
4) Website - nothing
5) Promotion - $50 And there you have it! I managed to make money
almost right away for an initial cost of less than $65. I mean,
$65 can get me half a tank of gas on its own, a whole mess of
beers, or a little weekend entertainment. But I figured that if
I passed on one weekend of fun (and it did suck, I'm not going
to lie, what with all the research and all) and it could bring
me a few extra weekends of fun and keep my truck on the road,
that it would be worth it.
And it has been.
It's been quite a nice little experiment. I mean, what kind of
business can you start for $65 to where you can actually start
making money right away? I have since then used the money from
the sales for more promotion to bring me up to the $700 mark,
but this seems to be a pretty good start for someone who has very
little computer skill and would rather be out driving around in
the mud and drinking beer than cooped up in a house working on
a computer.
I'm sure if someone actually knew what they were doing, they'd
probably be able to make a lot more than me, but for my little
experiment small brain size, I think it went well.
So that's about it. Everything turned out. Oh, maybe I should
give you a link to $5 guy's website if you want to sign up for
the same thing. I think he was saying that he was going to increase
the price, or stop taking in new people, or something like that
a while back, so I'm not sure if this will still work. But you
can check out his site by going to http://www.internetwealthcreationnews.com
