Over at the Get Rich Slowly Blog J.D. Roth writes a lot about personal finance, including some reviews about personal finance books.
One of his latest reviews is of the book The Incredible Secret Money Machine by Don Lancaster
The book is about starting and running a small business. It isn’t a book about earning millions, but rather a book about earning a comfortable income doing something that you enjoy doing.
The book states that to build a “money making machine” is to stay true to four basic principles:
- You have to be heavily into a technical or craft trip on a total lifestyle basis
- You must want to stay in control
- Your income goals should be just enough to keep going
- Be gentle
There are other tips that he shares for building a money machine:
- Have as many different sources of income as possible
- Have complementary sources of income
- Deal directly with the customer
- Work toward deferred income
- Know the difference between cold cash, imaginary money, and megabucks
- Separate frugality from stupidity
- Avoid psychic energy sinks
J.D. Roth comes to the following conclusion about the book:
Some of the advice in The Incredible Secret Money Machine now seems quaint, 30 years after the book was published. The author’s “hip” language and many of his examples are outdated. But smart readers can extrapolate, and still learn a lot. You have to be able to read Lancaster’s advice on letterhead, for example, and think of it as advice for web sites.
Although Lancaster believes that you must be into your money machine on a total lifestyle basis, I’m not sure that’s true. I think you can have a part-time money machine. A full-time money machine will be more profitable, of course, but a part-time money machine is a great way to start.
You can read his full review on his blog: Get Rich Slowly – personal finance that makes cents – The Incredible Money Making Machine.