THE GUMBALL KING!!

What I’m slowly learning is that the key to financial happiness is in your expenses to income ratio. How much money coming in to your house has to exceed how much money you are spending or plan to spend by so much that you don’t need to worry about it. How can NBA stars buy a $300,000 car. Because they make that in 2 weeks; your average person drives around 6 months of salary. Their income is so much so, they don’t have to worry.

To accomplish a good ratio you need to do two things, Increase your income and decrease your spending. I am living as low budget as I can stand right now, so I need to continue to increase my empire.

The newest move is:

GUMBALL MACHINES.

That’s right. I passed up the solar powered flash lights and the open toe snow shoes to buy some Gumball MACHINES!!

I am now the proud Papa of 5 gumball machines. Not just any machines but Altoid Machines.

As you all know by now, everyone is trying to get out of Michigan, so Craigslist is a cornucopia of people trying to drop businesses and run. I check everyday for opportunities that people can’t support due to poor cash flow, health, relocation etc. This was a relocation opportunity. Two young entrepreneurs such as myself owned 5 of these Altoid machines. They were both moving from Michigan and wanted to unload them at the price of $1000.00 for all. $200 a piece. The going rate is anywhere from $750 to $65 so I thought $200 was a fair price.

The good part; they were already in locations. That means no knocking on businesses asking if they would host the machines. It’s already been done. 4 out of the 5 locations don’t’ even get money and one gets 10% of the money that rolls in.

HOW PROFITABLE CAN THIS BE?


Good question. I ran some numbers and have been colleting some real data.
Here is the breakdown. Amazon.com sells 25 lbs of the gum for 319.00 including shipping and handling. That equates to approximately 7975 pieces or .04 per piece of gum.

You get 2 for a quarter, or sell them for 12.5 cents. That’s like a 300% mark up.

Each machines holds 3300 pieces of gum but they should be filled only ¾ of the way for ease in the turning mechanism which leaves 2475 pieces per machine. Let’s say I fill the machines up when there is 1/3 left meaning there is 1237 pieces of gum sold or $154.62 in the machine.

There is 2 pieces of gum for every quarter or 618 quarters every fill up.

It’s definitely not going to be quick money.

To get 618 patrons during business hours (6 days a week 12 hours per day) will take 8 weeks before refill is needed if I get 1 patron per hour.

To plan on worse case scenario use 1 sell every 2 hours which would mean $154.62 every 16 weeks per machine (5 machines) $773.00 or $193.275 a month. I will have an ROI (return on investment) of approximately 10 months.

Relax, I’m not going to quit my job or retire from gumballs but $193. bucks per month is a nice chunk of change.

Let’s see if the calculations hold true….and I will try not to chew up my profit.

-MJL

Vending

Millionaire

Altoid

Gumballs

The Blahhs

Even your boy gets a case of the blahs! I am so intesne so when I get the blahs; I get the blahs. Then I start taking down everyone around me. It's my civic duty not to get the blahs. It might be the weather. Michigan weather just takes some gettng used to. Maybe it's the pure suck-osity of my job. At least I have a job. Maybe it's the snow and ice storm and my lately 2 hour daily commute. How about the fact that some low life tried to break into one of my work vans.

No I know what it is; it's the site and smell of kitty vomit on my carpet after getting home from a hard day at work. That's it!

How to combat the blahhs. Suck it up; take a deep breath and keep it moving. Look in the mirror and that's the person responsible for your mood.

Is any of that stuff a big deal; no. It's not even a little deal. People go through much worse. There was a tornado in Tenn. that killed 57 people and I'm complaining about a little snow.

The good thing about my blahs, they only last 5 minutes. Then I'm back killin it. 4 min 58 sec. and counting.


OK Now I'm back.

-MJL

THE TAX MAN COMETH!

First of all I would like to give a big shout out to MICHELLE - I hope New Baby Girl and Mom are doing well.




After a volatile January we are trying to continue to kick ass in Feb.

I have five big things going on right now: My Main Job, My "Big" Website idea, two inventions I'm trying to bring to market and my Truck Washing Business.

My main job and truck washing business have been getting most of my attention because money from these endeavors is what I have been pouring into the others. I am all risk right now. No savings; only investing. The risk is minimized because I'm betting on myself.




TAXES TAXES AND MORE TAXES

Well my business had a great year; so I figured I better legitimize things and get an accoutant.

First of all - Do you know how much a good accountant costs? How about $300 per hour? The actual write up work and tax preparation stuff can be done by a lessor member of an accountant firm, but the consultation and prep is typically done by a partner. All news to me.

Second of all - Do you know how important each and everything you put into and pull out of your business account is? Very important.

The first thing he told me was, "If you want to go to jail, Then Keep Doing What you are doing". He said you are more likely to get away with killing someone then not paying your taxes.

I told him to do whatever he needs to do to get me right.

I brought in my huge "Timberland" box of records and printouts from Quickbooks. 16 hours later, he had my 2005, 2006 and almost 2007 taxes done. That's right I haven't filed business taxes in 3 years. "How could someone that is so smart be so stupid?" That is the same thing my accountant asked.

It's because I've been thinking survival! Who cares about taxes if you aren't even going to be in business.
When you have no money - you have no choice. Now I have a huge Accountant Bill, and three huge IRS bills.


To maintain everything on the Up and UP so to speak, I had my accountant set up a payroll service. He then tells me that I should set up a check for myself twice a month. This means that I have to pay myself a check, pay taxes on that income, have the business pay taxes on that money and then put the money back into the business.

How sick is that.

When it's all said in done I have a huge problem. THE TRUCK WASHING BUSINESS IS IN THE RED!.....Again.

My first order of business is getting more customers. I haven't had this problem in a long time. The days of me printing brochures at home, searching for addresses in Yahoo Yellow pages, and printing labels and folding are long gone. I contacted three agencies and I am waiting for a quote.


So the bad news - All savings and business savings have been exhausted to the tune of slightly under $20,000.

The good news - Your boy is not going to jail. It appears that Wesley (Snipes) was aquitted too.

So not only do you get more blogging from me but Wesley might give us Blade 4!


Gotta Run - there's much work to do.


-MJL