I have a lot of pictures from my travels, and thought it might make sense to see if other people have an interest in using those images. Therefore, I uploaded some to Adobe Stock. Many of the images that I wanted to use, I had to throw out because they were too low quality or because I realized that commercial photography was not allowed in those places (e.g. Zoo). Therefore, I ended up with 14 images. Most of them were nature shots. All of them are currently in review, and I will mention here what the next steps for these images are.

My rent recently got increased from $2050 to $2277.

This sucked because I did not want to move, but this change forced me to consider the option. After one weekend of apartment hunting, I had found an apartment that was slightly smaller, but brought me no real downside for $2050 with a $500 move in bonus and no water, sewer, and garbage costs. These costs were $80 per month at my old apartment.

Work I put in
To find the apartment I had to spend one weekend, and I assume I will have to spend another weekend moving my furniture. Therefore, I hope that the total time spend on this move will be less than 32 hours.

Money I will loose
Because I have an 9 day overlap between the two apartments, I will be paying 9/29*2050 = $636 for the overlap.
Additionally, I might lose my security deposit of $600. (This is a worst case scenario)
I will also have to spend money on moving supplies (boxes, etc.), which will be approximately $60, and I will have to rent a uhaul. This could cost another $150.
In the worst case scenario, I will therefore lose $1,350.

Money I win

(2277 – 2050)*12 + 500 + 12* 80 = ~$4200

Was it worth it?

My net profit will be ~$2,850 over the time of my 12 months lease.
This means my hourly wage for this is 2850/32 = ~$90/hr in Netto money.
This is the equivalent of ~$130/hr in brutto, considering a 30% tax rate.
This is waaay more than what I earn during my day job. Therefore, I am glad that I spend the time to move out of my current apartment.

I had been thinking about writing a book with tips for college students for a while. During my college years, I realized that most college advisers are not acting in the interest of the students and end up giving terrible advice.

As I have accumulated a lot of insights into the college system I wanted to share this knowledge. I don’t have meaningful credentials to comment on the american education system other than my 5 years spent at Michigan State University in which I

• graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA
• completed 4 internships at companies like Ford and Tesla
• met my significant other
• met my best friend
• developed leadership skills by leading our international student association
• worked in a research lab on Machine Learning solutions
• Had an active social life participating in parties, tailgates, trips, and clubs

However, I realized that I do not enjoy writing enough to ever complete an entire book.
Yet, I still want to share the lessons I learned because I am convinced that they will give value to many students. In conclusion, I want to build an online course!

Initial steps for building an online course

1. Investigate Udemy for creating this course. I love Udemy as a student; this is the reason why I am considering using Udemy for this.
   –> Complete by 02/09/2020 – Done
2. Identify the tools Udemy provides for creating an online course
   –> Complete by 02/09/2020 – In progress
3. Identify the tools needed to create an online course by answering the following questions:
   –> Complete by 02/15/2020
   a) Will I need a camera, or is my phone sufficient? –> Phone is good
   b) Will I need a microphone? –> Microphone is ordered
   c) Lighting a Scenery? Are there any purchases necessary? – To be bought
   d) Do I need a video editing program? –> TBD Adobbe Premier + Photoshop
   seems good.
   e) Tripod –> Bought
4. Start writing a lesson plan:
   a) Identify 3 or more chapters/semesters
   –> Complete by 02/15/2020 –> Identified 4
   b) Identify first 3 lessons heading
   –> Complete by 02/15/2020 –> Identified 11
   c) Write a first lesson script
   –> Complete by 02/16/2020 – Done!

Plan

DATE	TASK DESCRIPTION
02/25/2020	Have all 11 script written for course #1
03/05/2020	Purchase last items for set
03/08/2020	Build Set
03/15/2020	Have all videos recorded
03/22/2020	Have all videos edited and uploaded
03/25/2020	LAST DAY TO SUBMIT FOR UDEMY SHOUTOUT

Credit Card Churning is the practice to identify cards with large benefits to abuse their opening bonus. This works in the following way. You identify a card, you apply and receive the card. Then you meet the minimum spending amount to get the benefits.
After this you can either keep the credit card, close it, or downgrade to a card without an annual fee. As I currently have only a single active credit card, I will try to identify a card where the long-term benefits will allow me to keep the card.I looked into some Credit Cards, and these are the offers I identified so far.

Name	Bonus	Minimum Spending	Cash Back %	Annual Fee	Other Benefits
Capital One Venture	50,000 Miles	$3000/3months	2% in miles	95	None
Chase Sapphire Preferred	60,000 points	4000/3months	1-5%	95	Food delivery subscription
American Express Platinum	70,000	5000/3months	1-5%	550	200$ for Uber 200$ for Airline Fees
Chase Sapphire Reserve	50,000	4000/3months	1-3%	550	300$ travel budget Food delivery subscription
American Express Gold	50,000 points	2000/3months	1-4% 4x on Supermarkets	250	120$ for Grubhub 100$ Airline Budget
American Express Green	30,000	2000/3months	1-3%	150
Citi Premier	60,000	4000/3months	1-3%	95

It seems like it is important to know what you spend on average via credit card to avoid paying more in the 3 months than you would usually do:
My average spending last year was approximately $2000 per months. This will equal $6000 for 3 months. Therefore, a credit card with a $4000 minimum spending should be okay. A $5000 minimum spending rate can be considered as well as long as one large item payment will be included in the 3 months.
To maximize the dollar amount of the point Aeroplan seems like a good option.

I believe that currently the Amex Gold is a great fit for me. However, the Chase Saphire Preferred has a very large bonus. I am considering getting both of these cards this year.
Let’s look at some more passive income ideas:

• Create an Alexa Skill
• Crowd-funded real estate with Fundrise
• Start a Podcast
• Become a rental property manager
• File my taxes

For next time

Next time I will try to finish the list of credit cards, and make a decision which one I believe is the best for me. Then I will investigate one more topic on my list of passive income ideas. The goal will be to generate get started on one idea every week.

Update 02/09/2020

I have decided to get the AMEX Gold for two reasons:

1. I believe it will be a credit card that is profitable for me in the long run
2. There was an offer to get 50,000 points instead of 35,0000 points when spending $4,000 in the first three months.

This means I will redirect all of my expenses to my AMEX for the upcoming months and in three months, I might revisit this topic again. However, this is the current calculation for my AMEX GOLD:

COST :

250 / Year

BENEFITS :

$120/ year in Grubhub
$100/ year in Airline Credit
50,0000 points = $500 (one-time only)

Because I use delivery services, and need to pay for checked bags no matter what, both of these are evaluated at 100%. There is also a $100 hotel credit that i valued at 0% because I have not yet found a way utilize that benefit effectively.

CASHBACK

The two major cashback opportunities that I will use this card for will be Grocery and dining. Both of these give 4% cashback. My grocery and dining expenses are usually $150 per week = $7800 per year, and I have previously received 1.5 % cashback using my Chase Freedom unlimited card. The difference using the AMEX gold will give me a benefit of :

Grocery and dining: $7800 * (0.04-0.015) = $195

Additionallly, the AMEX will also give me 3% on flights. While I plan to get a travel credit card in the future, for this year this will give me a 1.5% advantage over my Chase Freedom card on the approx. $2500 I spend on flights per year:

Flights: $2500*(0.03-0.015) = ~$40

PROFITS

Total profit (first year): -$250 + $120 + $100 + $500 + $195 + $40 = $705

Total profit (following years): -$250 + $120 +$100 + $195 = $165

The Quest

This blog is designed to document and brainstorm ideas on how to generate more income with less work. You might have heard people talk about passive income. Without a giant start capital or a set-in-stone business, this seems unfeasible for me right now.
Leverage income, is income that does not grow proportionally to the time spend, but exponentially. I will still invest a lot of my time, but hope that this will be an source of income even when I scale down my efforts. This blog will generate ideas on how to do so.

Current Status

These are my sources of leveraged income and their expected returns.
I will not consider my 401K leveraged income because I do not have access to it for 36 years. I also do not consider inflation in this.

• Savings Account: 1.7% * $25,000 + $100 bonus= $525
• Certificate of Deposit: 1.75% * 10,000 = $175
• Stocks and ETFs: 6.00%** * (7,000 + 3255.82) = 615$
• Fixed Income: 2.75% * 7866.95 = $215

** as given by https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/average-stock-market-return/

Total leveraged income: $1530 per year

Let’s try to do the same amount per month!

Initial ideas

These are some ideas from Youtube videos and other blogs on how to create leveraged income. Some of these are not actually leveraged, but can be used to create additional income for investments and other projects.

• Create a blog:
  – Work: Low
  – Chance of Success: Low unless instagrammable
  – Investment: Low
• Create an online course (Udemy, Youtube, ??):
  – Topics: How to college, coffee, career management, finance, book reviews
  – Work: High
  – Chance of Success: Medium
  – Investment: Medium
• Write a book
• Credit Card Churning
• More investments
• Real Estate
  – not possible in the valley, but somewhere else?
• Focus Groups
• Affiliate Marketing
• Photography Royalty
• Own an ATM ?? (Cost $850 to $5000)

Tasks for next time

• Identify 5 more leveraged income ideas
• https://millennialmoney.com/passive-income-ideas/
• Investigate one option per week in depth