Cash in on Apocalyptic and Survivalist Nuts
Money can be made by playing off right-wing nut fears.
Many left-wing nuts also believe the world is going to hell, but they would rather fight and protest the powers than prepare for survival. One could generate sales with books and blogs describing how to fight authority and create anarchy. That is another subject.
Right-wing nuts tend to worry about a religious war resulting in apocalypse and surviving nuclear war. These folks were the kind that helped hype the Y2K bug fear. They are afraid gays, Hillary Clinton, and the U.N. are coming to take their guns, force their families into pornography, and burn their bibles.
Take advantage of this fear by creating books and blogs that hype up these fears, creating scenarios even they never imagined. Making thin connections between seemingly unrelated events is a great way. For example, connect some aspect of the current war with the foreseen North American Union. Connect Janet Jackson's Superbowl breast reveal (the infamous wardrobe malfunction) with a terrorist bombing in the world that week; make the connection that the Janet Jackson episode provided a distraction for the bombing.
After generating fear in the absurd, then you have to transform it into an action that the believers can do to try helping themselves against the coming catastrophe.
A great way to direct their fears is towards buying emergency survival kits. There should be one for the home, one to go in the car, and one bag for each family member.
The home survival kit should include a first aid kit, full changes of clothes, plastic sheeting and tarps, ropes, chains, locks, plastic zip ties, filled water gallons, dehydrated foods, nuts, foods with high calories, flashlights, batteries, protective wear like coveralls and Kevlar gloves, tools like crowbars, adjustable wrenches, screwdrivers, staple guns, matches, lighters, etc.
The to-go survival packs should include transistor radios, cash in small bills (remember ATMs probably won't work after a disaster), important documents (home insurance policy, medical insurance cards, passport, driver's license, bank records, photos of individual family members and copies of those photos, local maps, etc.), spare keys, mylar space blanket, extra clothes fitting each person, food like sports bars and drinks, critical medicines, ibuprofen, painkillers, children's medicines, duct tape, signal devices like flares or fireworks, and multitools like leatherman or gerber.
And of course, a list should be made of the items that will be most valuable to sell after a disaster, to generate greed in their minds.
If this seems unethical to you, by all means do not do it, you need stomach for it. However, keep in mind that our mass media and government do it everyday, so why shouldn't normal entrepreneurs do it also?
Rent prom dresses out of your home
Prom dresses will always be needed in America, probably second only to food.
Every school year, all across America, high school girls are vying for pretty prom dresses.
Prom dresses are expensive.
It is possible to buy below-cost prom dresses via sales, closeouts, and used (local paper or eBay). Get a mix of modest and risque outfits. When you know you have a popular outfit, try acquiring multiple sizes of the most popular sizes.
Many people find an easy business is renting those prom dresses out of their homes. You reserve one room as your "store", and display the dresses in there.
Provide a lighted closet or privacy screen for girls to try on the dresses. Provide a 3-fold mirror for the girls to model the dresses for themselves. Take care that the mirrors reflect neutral surfaces, rather than harsh elements that could discourage buying comfort.
Rent the dresses for $10-30 for two weeks, and stipulate the dresses must be returned dry cleaned or an extra $25 fee applies. Add a $1 per day late charge on the 15th day.
Most prom dresses rent for $50+, because those businesses have to pay for expensive retail storefront space. Do not dream that you can go bigger than your home rental space, because you would have to jack up your prices accordingly.
Look at this as a way to generate some extra cash, while helping out the market of girls struggling to afford nice dresses.
Create a sales form that functions like a contract in case you have to kick ass.
Check with your city's municipal laws regarding home businesses.
Do a seminar and publish a PDF on biggest tax scam tripups
It should not be a big surprise that nobody wants to pay taxes, so everyone wants to claim as little income possible and as many deductions possible.
This zeal can lead normally intelligent people to make stupid mistakes. A common tax mistake is to try deducting the cost of home renovations. The only way home renovations are deductible are
1-if part of a flip where you live there less than two years,
2-if the renovations were needed for handicap accessibility (lower kitchen counters and bathtubs with grab bars count; new siding does not count)
3-if the renovations are directly related to a home business (an entrance to the office counts, new kitchen cabinets in the home area do not count)
Many people try to take advantage of the third deduction reason. They may run a small business out of their home, but they fail to actually do renovations related to the home business.
Many people take this deduction and get away with it the first year. They think they got away with it.
The pipers (and tax attorneys) come to be paid at the time of selling the home. Normally, people living in their homes at least two years can keep all home sale profits tax free. This is a legitimate benefit of home ownership.
People who claimed their home as a place of business must pay taxes on their home sale profits. This is a normal part of doing business.
People get tripped up and signal red flags at the IRS when they have claimed home improvement deductions as a business need, then try to keep all the profits from their home sale because they were never really running a legitimate home business.
The penalties, back taxes, and interest can be huge.
If someone could research just the top ten ways that people get caught up in tax troubles, a short PDF and fee-entrance seminar could be given to teach those things. The PDF could be sold on eBay, and the seminars could have a $10-30 per-person charge, and could be given at any local library or motel room.
