Tentmaking Tips

A friend of mine, Roy Moran, responded to the email and jokingly said, “Wait, you didn’t tell the best part, she owns a car and doesn’t drive it, it drives her!”

Let me give you the backstory.

A few weeks ago Roy and I were at an event together and I told him he needed to “drive” my Tesla. I said there were only 2 rules: [1] Don’t touch the steering wheel and [2] Don’t touch the pedals. I’m sure it sounded crazy to Roy but he was up for the experience.

As the car started to drive him to our destination, he immediately grabbed his phone & started videoing the experience because he, like most people, have trouble believing it the first time they experience it. The car literally drives itself and all you have to do is look forward. It’s called FSD (Full-Self Driving).

Our story with Tesla began a year ago when my Dad decided to buy one for himself. He loved it so much he convinced us to get o

Here are those two newsletters:

Is College Hackable?

Is College Hackable? Part 2

A few years into it, I can tell you that it definitely is.

I’m so proud of my oldest daughter, McKinley, who will, Lord-willing, graduate next May with a 4-year BBA in Accounting.

Guess how long it took?

4 semesters.

Plus some of the hacks I’m going to tell you about.

Saving tens of thousands of dollars in the process.

We used quite a few of the hacks I wrote about (along with John) in the previous newsletters.

Here’s how she did it:

• She took as many dual credit classes in High School as she could

• She took community college classes in the summer to get the basics out of the way

• She also took several CLEP tests which eliminated some of her business core classes entirely

That resulted in:

• Her bringing in 57 hours of dual credit & community college classes

• Her CLEPing out of 6 hours

• Her taki
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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. I’m just explaining an additional way that people can generate extra monthly income. I would encourage you to only execute trades like this under the oversight of a experienced conservative trader.

A cash secured put is another way to generate consistent monthly option income.

This is how I’m generating the $1,000-$2,000 per month right now.

A cash secured put is an option trade where you earn a premium by committing to buy shares of a company at a lower price by a certain date.

Here’s an example:

• XYZ stock is currently trading at $100/share

• You want to own 100 shares of XYZ stock at $80/share

• You have $80 * 100 shares = $8,000 available to make this purchase

• You could sell a cash secured put option for a certain premium,
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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. I’m just explaining an additional way that people can generate extra monthly income. If you were to become interested in options, I would encourage you to only execute trades like this under the oversight of a experienced conservative trader.

One of the most conservative options trades is commonly referred to as the “covered call.”

You’re committing to sell 100 shares of your stock for an agreed upon price during a certain length of time and you’re paid a premium for that agreement.

The mechanics are fairly easy to understand using an example:

• You own 100 shares of a stock, let’s call it XYZ

• You bought XYZ for $100/share

• You sell a $110 call option which expires a month from now for $250 in premium

• If XYZ is trading at or above $110 in a month, you’ve earned the $250 in premium p
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Others read it and have no idea what stock options are.

Since this is a way that I’ve been producing recurring income for many months now, I wanted to share it with you.

Now, before I begin, I need to give a big disclaimer.

I am not a financial advisor. I’m not recommending you trade options. There is always a risk when you invest money in stocks or trade various derivatives.

I’m simply sharing with you a story of a way I’ve been making an extra $1,000-$2,000/mo with minimal time and effort.

Me and Simon share a variety of ways in this newsletter to generate extra income in your spare time. Not everything we share is something everyone should do. We’re just trying to help you see all the various ways to earn income on the side. We trust that through prayer and wise counsel you’ll determine which ways make the most sense to you.

Ok, having said that, I want to share what I’ve been doing.

A few ye

That’s 4x more.

This is a great reminder that over the long-term, equities (stocks & funds) do better than holding your money in cash-equivalents.

Are you benefiting from this year’s 4x increase over treasuries? I hope you are!

I’m not suggesting that all of your money should be invested in equities, of course. The percentage you invest will have to do with life stage, risk tolerance, and how soon you might need the money. You could consult with a fee-based financial advisor to sort out a plan for you or study up on your own.

But, suffice it to say, investing some percentage is likely a wise idea.

When you’re early in your career, it will likely be a much higher percentage than later in your career. And the percentage will likely go down even more significantly

It could be transferring your savings to a High Yield Savings Account to earn extra interest.

It could be eating out or grocery shopping at a significant discount.

Or it could be maxing out your retirement accounts.

Over the last 6 months, we’ve continued to do as much “Life Hacking” as we can.

Here are some of the things we’ve done:

• We maxed out our HSA and both IRAs at the beginning of the year

• We’ve continued to use our weekly Chipotle Hack

• We paid our IRS tax bill with credit cards & got enough in bonuses to cover the cost of our CPA for the year

• We’ve significantly hacked my daughter’s upcoming college tuition costs, hopefully saving over $50k in the process (CLEP tests, community college class transfers, optimizing the block tuition, etc)

• We’ve kept our cash in treasuries or money market accounts so most of our ca
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I invited newsletter subscribers to share any additional “hacks” they’ve used.

One of my good friends and fellow pastor at our church, John Bradshaw, responded back with some other great “hacks” that his family used to put their kids through college.

He shared 3 additional “hacks” and I’m going to quote him here:

1. Stay at home - Don’t go to UT Austin (in the case of someone whose family lives in Lubbock). Stay in Lubbock, go to Tech, and live at home (one of my kids did this). And your community college point from the last newsletter makes this even better. Go to South Plains Community College (again using Lubbock as the example) for two years and then go to Tech.

2. Apply for every scholarship available (there are a ton) - When one of my daughters said she wanted to go to Hardin Simmons (a private school) we said, “That’s great but we can’t pay for it and we don’t...