Nobody taught you this in orientation. Nobody will teach you this in class. The system you are sitting in right now is designed to train you for a job, not to build a business for you.
I started my financial education at 17. I went off to college, and instead of getting a part-time job at the campus bookstore, I started booking personal training clients. Then I booked more clients than I could handle, so I brought in other athletes from the school to help with the workload. I was the marketer. They did the training. I was booking 26 to 30 hours a week at $40 to $70 an hour, and that was in the 80s. By the time I graduated, I had made six figures as a full-time student.
You can do this. Right now. With what you already know.
Here are the three things that actually move the needle.
What You Already Know Is a Business
Stop looking for something exotic. Your current skill set is your starting point.
Academic? Tutor. You can charge $50 to $100 an hour in most college towns for SAT prep, subject tutoring, or college application coaching. The demand is there. The barrier to entry is just saying yes.
Student athlete? You are a brand. Quarterbacks are teaching throwing mechanics. Volleyball players are running serve clinics. Tennis players are selling strategy sessions. One athlete in my network runs a pressure-washing business, doing five figures a month on commercial contracts, and that started as a side hustle between practices.
Do you know social media? Because most businesses in your college town do not. They do not have a content strategy. They barely have a working Instagram. If you know how to shoot, edit, or post, you can walk into ten local businesses this week and pitch a monthly retainer. My son did exactly this when he played at Georgia Southern. He was creating content for clothing stores and local brands before most people even understood it was a job.
The point in Put More Cash In Your Pocket is that fast cash comes from skills you already have. Hobbies become businesses. What you know right now is worth money today.
“Broke folks trade time for money. Six-figure earners build systems.”
Whatever you are already good at, someone is willing to pay for it. You do not need to be 30 to start.
Why You Must Be Incorporated Before the Money Gets Big
This is the part nobody tells student athletes, and it is costing them everything.
Some of the athletes I work with are making $20,000 a month through NIL deals. That is $240,000 a year, more than most adults will earn in a full-time job. And they are getting crushed at tax time because the money is coming to them personally instead of to a company.
Here is the rule: companies get deductions. Individuals get the worst tax strategies in the 81,000-page tax code.
When money flows through an LLC in your state, with the right tax team behind it, the tax burden drops to almost nothing by comparison. When the money flows to you as an individual, you get a Schedule C with 13 to 30 deductions and a big check owed to the IRS.
I set up my daughter’s LLC when she was 16. She turned 18, and it was already waiting for her. My son has had one since he started earning. If you are 18 and making real money from a side hustle, NIL, or a service business, the LLC is not optional. It is the move.
The structure is the strategy. Get your entity first, then get a tax team that knows how to work with it.
Click here to book a strategy call
The Credit Card Conversation Nobody Is Having With You
Between 18 and 22, you are going to be offered credit cards more times than you can count. Online banking apps. Store cards. Campus promotions. Most of them are traps.
There is a right way and a wrong way to build business and personal credit. The wrong way lands 22-, 23-, and 24-year-olds in debt consolidation or bankruptcy. The right way, done with a real expert, builds a credit profile that supports your business and protects your score.
Manage your credit card use the same way you manage your business: intentionally, with a plan, not reactively when you need cash.
The One Investment Move That Makes You a Millionaire
You do not need a complex portfolio right now. You need one account and the habit of funding it.
Open a Roth IRA. Start contributing now. If all you do is put money in a Roth IRA for 20 years, the compounding alone makes you a millionaire. One move. That is it.
The Roth is funded with after-tax money, so when you withdraw it in retirement, it is tax-free. As a student or young earner, your tax bracket is likely low right now. That makes this the single best time in your life to fund it.
Start Today
- Write down your current skill set. What do you know how to do that someone else would pay for? That is your Cash Machine.
- If you are 18 and earning, talk to a tax strategist this week about setting up an LLC in your state. Do not wait until the money is already gone.
- Open a Roth IRA. Automate a small contribution monthly. Let it run.
- Spend five to ten minutes a day on your financial education. Read Think and Grow Rich. Read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Come back here every day and take one thing you can act on.
You are not too young. You do not have to wait until after graduation. The students and athletes I know who are building real wealth are doing it right now, with the skills they already have, inside a structure that protects what they earn.
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