I may be shooting myself in the foot by posting this but… I am working towards leaving my job. Real estate investing is fun, and it brings nice paydays when I actually have a closing. But the fact is, it’s hard for me to create a reliable income from real estate investment. I’m not interested in being a landlord, so wholesaling is what I’ll be doing.

That said, I need to create other income streams to be able to step away from the job. I’m slowly building my vending business to have a reliable passive income. But in the meantime, I’ve grown weary of the job, and I want and need to do something else. So, I’ve decided to go back to my old-school methods like RentACoder! Actually, the name of the site has now changed to vWorker (that should be a clue as to how long it’s been since I checked in). I bid on three jobs so far, and just got one of my bids accepted today! So I’m very excited. I’m  ExpertRating certified in English/Spanish translation, so I expect to have more bids accepted for those job categories. The best thing about doing virtual work is that I can potentially work from anywhere as long as I have a laptop and Internet connection.

So here’s my overview of how my business ventures will make my life nicer: real estate investment for fun and to payoff debt, vending business for passive income, virtual work to pay the bills in the meantime (and be able to travel anywhere while doing so). The pieces are finally fitting together! Now to make it happen

Updates:

Real estate investing – I met with a seller who received one of my letters yesterday. I’d only inquired about one house, but it turns out he has four that he needs to sell to avoid foreclosure. I’m only interested in three of the homes right now. I got one contract signed last night, and the other two he needed to take home to get signed by his wife who is also on title. While were sitting in my car signing docs (the Dunkin’ Donuts closed just as we got there), I casually ask him: so… do you know of anyone else that has a property they need to sell? He says: oh yeah, I’m the pastor at my church, and we need to sell a big, empty commercial building that we’ve owned for years” Yeah baby, I’ll be all over that one as well. I haven’t wholesaled a commercial property yet, but I will certainly learn how to do so now I also have a potential end-buyer for my recently approved shortsale, but he’s kind of dicking around. I’ll put the property on the MLS by this weekend if I don’t have a signed contract and deposit by Saturday.

Vending – I’ve slacked off and forgot to return calls of people who responded to my email. I will put those calls on my to-do list to be completed by Friday. I broke down the double-head I still have at home to a single, and I’ll be ordering an additional stand and gumball wheel set this week. I’m sticking with my gumballs only plan.

Virtual freelancing – Got my first job accepted today, and it’s due in 48 hours. Actually, this isn’t the first job I won at vWorker, but since I closed my old account a long time ago, I had to open a new one and create a new profile. So, this is the first job for the new profile, hehe. Maybe I can use this as an excuse to finally get a Macbook, hmmm…

That’s it for now. Thanks for checking in!

financial independence · passive income · real estate investing · vending · Virtual freelancing

Today I found two vending business forums (VENDiscuss and VendingChat) where I was able to learn a lot more about reliable bulk vending machines, product selection and more. When I first got the machine, I went to BJ’s and bought peanut M&Ms and Mike & Ike’s. However, it’s summer right now, and everyone seems to agree that these candies don’t do well in the summer because of melting and sticking problems. I also found out that gumballs are the most profitable product. So, I took the peanut M&Ms and Mike & Ike’s back to BJs, and got gumballs and Skittles instead. And it was all $8 cheaper. It would’ve been $16 cheaper, but I opened one bag of Mike & Ike’s that I couldn’t return.

I also received my charity vending stickers today. Now all I’m waiting for is the locator service and I’ll be good to go. Can’t wait!

bulk candy vending · passive income · vending business

Is a drop-shipping business really a form of passive income? I’m starting to think not. Here’s why: a passive income stream is supposed to require work to setup, then minimum ongoing maintenance to collect profits. A drop-shipping business requires constant inventory updates, order processing and shipment verification/confirmation. And if the drop-ship supplier runs out of the products you’ve already sold, that leads to refunds and headaches. In other words, a drop-shipping business is missing the “minimum ongoing maintenance” aspect of a passive income stream.

As I continue to setup the new vending business, I’m seeing the differences between it and my designer fragrance business. Now if I just promoted affiliate links, then the fragrance business would become passive. I’d only need to monitor my marketing efforts and click-thru rates. But designer fragrances are not a niche enough market. So after almost two years in business, I may have to retire SmellRealGood. Either that or find a niche in the fragrance business that hasn’t been exploited yet.

fragrance business · offline business · online business · passive income · vending business

The tenant finally has a new, working water heater. Hooray. The contractor was even did a temporary fix for the basement door, without me asking, which makes me happy. As long as he can respond to my calls timely, I will be using him for every repair I need. Turns out that he also is a landlord himself, so I’ll be milking him for lots of advice/tips, for sure.

After speaking to a good friend of mine, I’m going to give this landlording business a chance. It is passive income after all, and I don’t really want to give that up. I feel I have a good tenant, so as long as the property is decent, I should be okay. I think my rant yesterday was a result of momentary insanity caused by frustration. So let’s see.

On the vending business front, I’m in the process of signing up with a charity, and then I’m going to hire a locating service to place the machine so I don’t have to pay a commission every month. The service charges only $31 and they offer a money back guarantee with results within a week of ordering. They’ll even relocate for free if I get kicked out within 90 days for any reason.

On the perfume business front, I’m closing my Paypal account. They have instituted a new “policy” where they can hold your funds for whatever amount of time they please. The letter states that it is not because I did anything wrong, but because they want to implement a new policy to “protect” me. I received this information after receiving a new order for almost $100 from a new client through the iOffer.com store. So guess what? I told them, with a selection of choice words, that I don’t need to use their service anymore. So I instructed them to refund the transaction to the buyer and close my account. In the meantime, the buyer paid me via Google Checkout (with NO problems whatsoever, of course), and I’ll be processing the order today. It’s so nice to have a choice with payment processors.

passive income · Paypal sucks ass · perfume business · real estate rentals · vending business

Even though I’m holding down a 9-5 job and an active real estate agent business, I recognize the importance of having passive income streams. I want to work at stuff I enjoy, and I want to have more time, money and freedom to do what I want (like travel to every possible food festival, but that’s another dream). So I’ve made a list of things that I could create to bring in passive income, and I believe I can make it happen. Here’s the list:

• Creating programs for mobile devices: Since I’m a programmer just three classes shy of a degree, I might as well use the skills I’ve got. I’ve resisted it for a while, but what’s the point of paying all those student loans if I’m not going to use the skills I paid to learn? It’s akin to graduating from law school and never practicing law. I don’t want to be wasteful of my talents. If I can teach myself PHP, I’m sue I can figure out the Blackberry and iPhone. I have two ideas for programs already: one to improve an existing program that’s pretty horrible, and the other is a utility that I believe lots of people will use. I have a Blackberry myself, so I already have a platform to test on. I can’t talk about the ideas until I do some more research.
• Writing articles that bring in money over time: I’m starting to experiment with eHow.com and other sites ever since I found this post at the Smart Passive Income blog. I’ve written two articles so far. I’ll be writing articles for the rest of the month and provide an update during the first week of April.
• ATMs: I connected with another agent who swears by her machines. She’s always looking to place more machines, and I think I can duplicate her success. I’ve already found quite a few places that would benefit from an ATM. I may partner with her on my first machine.  This will require some capital unless I decide to lease, so I have to make a decision quickly and get on it.
• Creating ebooks: this is an idea that I wanted to pursue for a long time. I’d written down in an idea book that I lost, but I never forgot the name I created for it. I’ve already reserved the domain name and will have my first item created by the end of April. This will be connected to the eHow business.
• Real estate rentals: I want to acquire as many condos as possible and rent them out. I don’t want houses because I don’t want to deal with fixing roofs, damp basements, etc. The properties can be acquired with a loan or sub2. This is my least favorite idea however, since it requires the most upfront investment.

This is my short list of passive income ideas to pursue. Time to get crackin’!

ATMs · automation · business ideas · computer programming · ebooks · passive income · real estate rentals · writing good articles