Forget about the usual ways
When the average guy thinks of enjoying himself he sees himself
spending a lot of money to do it. He calls a travel agent to
have a whole trip arranged and it cost him a fortune. If he
desires to live in some kind of luxury housing, he either gets
up the enormous rent payments or he just doesn't live there.
Well, you can forget about doing things that way.
We're going to tell you how to obtain gracious living
accommodations which will cost you little or nothing, how to
travel luxuriously and make a profit while doing it, and how to
use every resource available to enjoy life and make money too.
Where are you going to live?
Have you ever thought about house-sitting? That's where you
reside in a mansion, in order to take care of it while the
owner is away. And the way some wealthy people travel or spend
time away from home, that mansion may be all yours, so to speak,
for 8 to 9 months of the year. There is usually one car that
goes along with the house and you may even be supervising a
couple of people who do the everyday chores and maintenance.
Putting your home on display
If, however, you own your own home, but you would like it to be
decorated more elaborately, you might try to arrange with an
interior decorator and/or a furniture company to provide the
decoration and furnishings in exchange for being allowed to
bring potential customers to your house to show what a good job
they do. The best prospect to approach for this kind of
arrangement is a decorator or furniture dealer who has just
started his business in your area, and is therefore eager to
have a top-notch "real-life" display.
There are other unusual and shrewd ways of arranging to have a
very nice place to live when you're going to be traveling. For
example, consider the following idea.
Uncle Pierre wants you
Would you like to live in France, or any other country, for
business or for a long vacation? You may be able to exchange
homes with a French family; they will live in your home here
while you live in theirs in France. Of course, the locations,
both here and there, must suit both parties, and the length of
time involved must be coordinated also. But it's worth doing
because it can give you a "home away from home." Contact the
embassy of the country you'd like to live in and they'll
probably be able to help you arrange it.
Traveling for business is good business
Whenever possible, make all your trips, even if they are
really vacation trips, provably serve some aspect of your
business so you can deduct the cost of them from your
corporation's profits. The tax rate on corporation profits
is 48%, so it makes good sense to deduct the cost of your trip
from your overall profits. That could save you up to half the
cost of the trip; Uncle Sam will, in effect, pay it for you!
This can be done very often if you are in business in which
traveling is a necessity, such as import/export. If you are
a travel agent you will often be invited by airlines, cruises,
hotels and resorts to travel or stay with them as their guest;
they hope, of course, you will then send your travel agency
customers to them. But this can work also if you're in a
business or occupation, like advertising or public relations
or writing, where you can give them free publicity in return.
Or you might want to be the organizer of a charter tour. You
then have an even wider choice of when and where to go, and
you as the organizer travel free. You should even pick up a
handsome profit besides, if you handle it right. First you
must find people who want to go. Often the easiest way is
to choose people who are already affiliated in some way; they
work for the same company or belong to the same club or church.
Then comes the choice of where to go. You might question
them, giving them the choice of place or you may start to
make some tentative preliminary enquiries about 3 or 4 places
and have them choose one of those places. Get an advance
deposit of at least 20%. You'll need this advance money to
arrange the charter flight, places to stay, local transportation
and sightseeing at the vacation spot, and so on. It also
ensures that those who make the reservations will actually go
because the deposit is not refundable (after a certain date).
A bonus for doing business in other countries
Our government wants to help you do more business overseas.
Before you go, therefore, contact the Department of Commerce.
They will arrange for you to meet people in each country you
visit who are in your industry and related fields. The
Commerce Dept. won't guarantee it, of course, but if you play
your cards right, these potential business associates will
wine and dine you and act as warm hosts in their native
countries. It not only costs you nothing; it promotes business
and lets you meet people who can really show you the best of
everything in their countries.
Traveling at Government Expense
Have you ever thought of getting paid to travel--of living and
working overseas? Uncle Sam now has over 230,000 of his
citizens working for him abroad. And you don't have to be a
scientist or technical specialist to be one of them. Persons
with clerical and office skills, as well as those with
administrative abilities, are needed. So are plumbers,
machinists, woodworkers and painters.
American companies also send people abroad
Don't forget the huge corporations if you're thinking of a
job abroad. Such companies as Citibank of New York, Johns-
Manville, IBM, International Harvester, Westinghouse and many
more, have Americans working for them overseas; and the pay
scales in many of these companies are higher than for their
workers in the same jobs at home. And there are jobs working
for foreign governments or private foreign companies that often
pay well and are quite interesting besides. For example, in
those countries where oil is being produced in huge quantities
(such as many of the Middle Eastern countries) there is a need
for people with experience in this field. What's more, the
general increase in wealth brought by the oil industry in
those countries produces a huge growth in the construction of
roads, buildings, factories, bridges, hotels and many more
things. People are needed to build and operate all of these;
if you've got the skills in demand, you can certainly land a
job, what's more, being there at the time when things are
growing may let you in on the ground floor of other moneymaking
opportunities. In fact, if you're the adventurous type, you'll
not only probably make more money abroad, but have a great time,
too!
Don't just be a Customer, be a Reporter
Generally people pay to go to a restaurant, sports event, theater
performance or movie. But reviewers don't pay; that is, if you
write about movies for any publication, no matter how small or
hinky-dinky the paper or magazine is, you, the reviewer, see the
movie free. The same goes for restaurants and other events,.
But in order to keep this gimmick working time after time you
should really be reviewing these places for some publication.
This isn't as hard to arrange as you might think. Many small
papers can't afford a large staff so they are looking for people
who will write for them for little or no payment. But who
should that non-payment bother you? After all, the genuine
credentials they give you as their reviewer lets you enjoy all
those great leisure activities for free. And with VIP treatment,
too.
Making money while you're absent
If you own the right kind of property, you can make money as an
absentee owner. Owning an apartment building is a fairly
uncomplicated process that can bring in good money. Your manager
or superintendent runs the building but all the rents are sent
directly to you. When any fuel oil is delivered, or anything
else for that matter, the bills are sent to you. When the
manager needs outside repairmen to work on the building, he
has them send the bill to you. Thus, since you control all
the cash flow (in from the rents, out to pay bills) you can
be totally in charge yet you need only devote a few hours once
in a while to actually go and look at the building to make sure
your manager is taking good care of it.
If you must pay, then pay as little as possible
Ok, let's face it; the above methods, good as they are, may not
always be available to you. You may actually have to pay to
travel and have a good time. Well, you can still travel in
style yet pay very little. The trick is to know that high-
quality, low-priced alternatives are available. For example,
your airline fare will most likely be your biggest expense. So
try not to take a scheduled airline flight at the height of the
season leaving in daylight hours on a weekend.
If you can, avoid
the regular flights and get on a charter flight. Under recent
law, charter flights are now freely available to individuals.
You don't have to be part of a group. What you must do, though,
is book your flight well in advance. And if you can't avoid
taking a regular airline, then fly at night in the middle of
the week. And even if your trip is really a vacation, try,
nevertheless, to do something connected directly to your business
while there. That's because airlines generally offer a better
price to a vacationer who buys a round-trip ticket and stays on
vacation for three weeks or more.
Most business trips take only
a few days and that round trip fare is higher. But if you take a
5 week vacation, say, and conduct business for 8 days during those
5 weeks, then you can deduct from your taxes your air fare and
your expenses (hotel, food, etc.) for the 8 days you were
conducting business.
So go ahead and get your share of the good life; just remember
it's even more fun if you can make a profit or save money. You
didn't get the money you have by being wasteful or careless.
Enjoy yourself, sure! Just watch what you're doing so you'll
have plenty of money to keep on enjoying yourself.
