It turns out that the art of making money is not truly an art form at all. Although some will sell it to you as such! They will present you with elaborate get rich schemes, ask you to take their seminar (for a one-time LOW PRICE), purchase their book, and unfold their secrets for those select few who are ready to “take the first steps to invest in their future, by investing in their product.” Sound familiar? While some individuals may legitimately have solid advice on what makes money in today’s world, everything you need to know about the road to financial health and wellness is free knowledge… And what pathway you take to achieve your goals depends on what path you have taken already, your ability to leverage your skills, and the steps you take for the foreseeable future.

If you are looking for legitimate ways to become financially secure, consider taking these next steps.

1. Education

Whether you choose to invest, sell a product, change your career to a more lucrative domain, or become a famous YouTuber, understanding how money works and what makes you money in today’s economic climate should be your starting point. This is not something you need to pay for. This can be done through Google searches highlighting “market trends” “successful startups”, or “making money from home.” Reading about market trends, risks, and taking time to truly discover your niche will assist you in creating a plan for moving forward. Last year, a former philosophy major founded a virtual preschool company and found himself in the throes of a hugely successful, multimillion dollar company—in its first year. There are several steps one can take to simply make money, but understanding what makes money in year 2021, will help you maximize your returns and minimize any risks that could place a barrier between you and success.

2. Maximizing Your Resources

The second step to financial security is to make the necessary steps toward financial wellness.  This includes understanding and improving your credit score, lowering your debt-to-income ratio, paying off credit card debt, removing any outstanding balances from collections, reducing, or eradicating any outstanding loans, and boosting your savings. The healthier your financial profile is, the easier the road ahead will be. Not only will this remove any barriers you may encounter if you need to borrow money for investing or purchasing, but it will improve your ability to access more resources in the future.

One easy way to do this is to consider the triad of financial success: Saving. Spending. Investing. 

• Saving:  how much money are you putting away or do you have access too?
• Spending: how much money do you realistically spend each month on bills and personal expenditures?
• Investing: how is money coming in and how fast are you making it? This could be through stocks, bonds, or through your employment. Time is investment.

While researching legitimate ways to become financially successful, the most consistent piece of advice I encountered is “to be honest about your relationship with money”, “set realistic goals for your first year”, and “be prepared to do the work before you begin to see the financial rewards.” Another worthy reiteration is that one should not be focused on making money quick, but creating a dependable, secure flow of recurring income that will set you up for the foreseeable future. A lot of business owners that see profitable first year results walk away with extraordinarily little at the end of the year because they chose to pour most of their earned revenue back into the company.

Thus, understanding the mindset behind making money and preparing yourself ahead of time is one way to get you through setbacks, obstacles, and deterrents that we all face through our induvial journeys. However, making minor adjustments in how you spend, save, or make money, can seriously impact your financial health. One can easily create a passive income, boost their savings, create extra dollars, or reduce the amount of spending to reclaim more of the money they already have access to. Moreover, because maximizing your resources directly effects your present situation, this is a relatively easy step one can take to generate money, fast.

3. Create Your Plan. Set a Goal.

Once you educate yourself, maximize your resources, then it is time to create a plan for moving forward. Not only will this plan assist you to focus on your goals, but financial lenders, banks, and potential backers may need more than a verbal request for assistance. However, not all plans are the same! A real estate investment plan is going to look vastly different from those looking to start a company or open their own business. I have read some creative outlines, flow charts, mini manifestos on erasable markerboards! It really does come down to you and how you work.

No matter how your plan takes form, or what your goal is, be sure you have the answers to these six questions before you begin:

1. What do I need to get started?
2. Once I get started, how much do I need to make to maintain my current lifestyle?
3. What will I do if there are setbacks, money is lost, and what will be the plan for moving forward?
4. Do I have a Plan B? 
5. Who are my natural supports and mentors?
6. How much do I want to make in one-year? What is my goal?

Also, if your plan deals in numbers—creating a budget will give you a solid goal to be working toward. This will also give you clear projections and allow you to weigh cost and effect more accurately. Here is one tool to help you get started.

4. Expect the Unexpected

Planning for shortfalls or expecting barriers is one way to combat feelings of “giving up” when the unexpected appears to be wreaking havoc to your perfectly formulated plan. This is where expecting the unexpected or anticipating that things may not go as planned, will help you power through it. Sometimes it takes going back to square one and recalculating your next steps, and if that happens, know it is a natural occurrence. I once read that failure is a myth because human nature does not give up. It is in a constant state of reinvention. The truth is life happens and having a plan to account for those foreseeable obstacles or moments of uncertainty will allow you to maneuver around them easily. In research for this article, one bit of phrasing occurred in nearly every narrative I came across—and that was simply, I did not give up. When I needed to try something new, I did it. I made it work.

5. Investment

Monetary Investment described in its most basic form, simply refers to using money to return a greater profit. Any list about making money should always include an investment category. Why? Because investment is by far the easiest and most lucrative way of making money in the known world.  However, it is not a “get rich quick” category, contrary to popular belief. It can take one to two years before you begin to see a return, depending on what type of investment opportunity you choose. Now, if you are looking for something a bit more lucrative with a swifter turnaround, real estate investment may be your answer.

Unlike traditional investing, the real estate market moves swiftly. For example, if you purchase a fourplex rental property and your calculated monthly payment on the unit is $2500 per month, but you rent each unit out for $1400 per month, your monthly takeaway is $3100. Once you pay off the unit, your monthly earnings then increase to $5600. In real estate, you see profits much more rapidly, which then influences your chance to acquire more properties at a much higher rate—thus generating the capacity of maximum earning potential. 

Types of Real Estate Investment include:

• Rental properties: buying properties and renting them out for profit.
• Flipping properties: the art of buying low-cost properties, placing equity in them, and selling them for more money than you acquired them for.
• Land: Raw Land can be one of those valuable assets that become more valuable as time progresses, depending on where it is located and the housing market. It can also be purchased with flexible payments and often owners finance it out, meaning that those looking to invest are not at the behest of pristine credit scores and bank decisions.
• Commercial Real Estate: otherwise called REITs. There is quite a bit of money to be made in commercial real estate in a consumer market. Commercial real estate refers to malls, hotels, offices, and rental properties that are not used for residential purposes. As an investor, you are buying shares in the real estate the company owns, and given the right circumstances, it can be highly profitable. However, I would highly advise you to connect with a professional given the current status of most brick-and-mortar operations.
• Crowdfunding Real Estate: crowdfunding investing is becoming all the rage due to accessibility and low minimums to begin. Being said, they are not as stable nor as established and often there are yearly minimums you must meet before you can reap any of your investment returns. Two of the most popular platforms gaining traction are RealtyMogul and Fundrise, but be sure to read the fine print. There are a lot of terms and restrictions you need to be made aware of before you invest your money.

One reason investing is a popular money-making machine is because it is easy to do. It is nearly considered passive income because you are making money with little to no effort. Therefore, most people use investments to set up their retirement, plan for their future, and as a secondary plan in the event they lose their main income source.

If you are looking to invest, you should brush up on your market basics, language, and trends. You will read a lot of financial lingo, so brushing up on your basics will help you move forward. Also, it is important to be aware that there are a lot of associated risks with investment and an unsteady market. Never invest your money without first doing research, talking to professionals, and understanding all the fine print before you make a financial transaction.

If you are still unsure about investing or where to begin, here are a few apps that may help you learn the ropes.

• Public: The Social Investing App

Public is excellent for those who are looking to find direct access to peers, professionals, and guidance during their investment experience. Public does not want you to merely invest your money, they want you to be successful at it. By offering you a community and social platform to invest alongside those who are navigating the experience, they truly offer levels of support that are unforeseen to other investing applications.

• Acorns

Acorns is a financial wellness app designed to help you save for retirement by rounding up change on all your purchases and redirecting it into a savings account. For example, if you buy a cheeseburger for $10.75, Acorns will round up the purchase to an even $11.00 and send the $.25 into savings. While this is not designed to get you rich quick, you may be surprised to learn how much earning potential one year of even purchases can generate. Acorns works with your active checking account, so be sure that you are comfortable with the terms and read all fine print before allowing apps to have full access to your private, financial information.

• YouTube

Right now, “how to become a famous YouTuber” is one of the most popular questions Google receives. And perhaps for good reason. Currently, YouTube offers something that no other platform does: the ability to become successful by doing what you love. Last year, Vixella, made half a million dollars under her persona by playing SIMS4, a popular virtual simulation game, for the world to see. Through similar tactics but with more success, Laurenzside made 3M, simply by reviewing games, hosting YouTube collaborations, and most recently, videoblogging trendy TikTok videos with her husband Bobby. They are both fantastic! Do not get me wrong, I understand the draw towards creating a lucrative career from the thing you love most, but there are a few things you should consider before setting your financial goals on YouTube fame.

1. You make money from ads. Money made on YouTube is from ads, not viewers, or subscribers—though the more you have, the more likely more ads will be accessed, and the larger your payout will be. More successful YouTubers generate views daily across all postings—not just current or new videos. For example: Azzyland, a Canadian YouTuber, has posted over 1000 videos since 2015 and continues to generate millions of views daily across all content. She has 4.2 billion views and is worth 23 million dollars. To keep up this kind of revenue she must acquire millions of views each day (not over the lifetime of a single post) to make serious income. This is no easy feat.
2. You do not make money right away. Before YouTube will kick back dollars, you must first prove yourself a YouTuber. To do this you must have at least 1000 subscribers and have accumulated enough views to reach the equivalent of 4,000 watch hours in one year. Once this is completed, YouTube must accept you into their Servicer’s Partner program, then at which point, you are able to begin generating revenue from your YouTube content.
3. YouTube has changed. YouTube has recently undergone many changes that have made it difficult to receive payouts, especially toward any content created for or having to do with children. Therefore, it is more difficult to generate cash from YouTube now than it was five years ago, and for many successful YouTubers—it has taken them that long to arrive where they are now.
4. YouTube is competitive. The once open platform that catapulted the double rainbow guy into his seven seconds of fame is now teeming with millions of videos all competitively looking to get an edge over the next. While once YouTube was an accessible sharing site for amateurs with a phone camera to play Minecraft, people approach YouTube with editing equipment, money, backing, and connections daily, all vying for views, subscribers, and loyalty to generate cash. Therefore, be prepared to do the work! Extraordinarily little YouTubers become YouTube famous without a little elbow grease and editing assistance.
5. Repetition must be your thing. One tedious aspect about growing social collateral is that you gain followers by doing one thing particularly well, repeatedly. Preston played Minecraft for years before his viewers followed him onto different platforms, and right now, most of Vixella’s viewers all show up to watch her play SIMS. In the back of my mind, I often wonder if DanTDM thinks about Minecraft and shivers. That being said—this is often how YouTubers are made. If you are looking to get into YouTube, presenting authentic content true to your platform and consistency is key. This is how you build up enough viewers to create an income from ads.
6. Follow Trends. Unlike other markets, YouTube is fair game when it comes to commercial and indie content. Being said, those who follow trends are more likely to get views than those who do not. Therefore, it is highly recommended you research and follow current trends before beginning your channel and creating a plan. Two years ago, you could not find a YouTuber that did not have at least one post dedicated to creating characters with pancake batter, and this month, everyone is “Sus” with Among Us. If you are looking to get into YouTube… Jumping on a bandwagon is one way to build your viewers swiftly. If you are not into trends, you may want to rethink your plan to become a YouTuber. At least for monetary purposes. Right now, most YouTubers who use the platform for non-entertainment purposes are finding themselves demonetized due to strategic rules and recent changes.
7. Privacy is obsolete. One of the harsher realizations of YouTube is that living a life in the public eye is not always easy. Your relationships. Your kids. Your entire life becomes fair game. Not only do you have to maintain your YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, with constant, relevant content, but you must deal with a fair amount of judgement spilling in from both your fellows and viewers alike. It is recommended you expect this to occur before going in—most YouTubers report this as being one difficult aspect they are consistently having to navigate. Being in the public eye is not always easy.

How to Get Rich Quick!

Whether or not you are looking to create your own startup, find a more lucrative career, change your personal spending habits, try your hand at investing, or are ready to start your own YouTube brand, making money and living a financially healthier lifestyle is not beyond your reach. A millionaire once stated that “There are a million ways to make a million dollars” and I have never been able to walkaway from that comment. No longer are dreams of financial security and wellness restricted to corporate backers, generational inheritance, or the select few. The marketplace is no longer contingent upon corporate America to create revenue. Platforms like YouTube or Etsy connect millions to millions every day! The internet allows for one idea to become globally recognized. By taking the appropriate steps and making the necessary connections, your ability to achieve financial wealth is yours for the taking.