Welcome to Ghost Business - where business ideas go to launch 🚀 or die ☠️

Dough-posit

I’ll take all ones… Let’s start off by saying this isn’t really a business idea. I could hardly even call it a side hustle, but have seen many folks doing versions of this.

Long story short; banks incentive people to set up direct deposit checking accounts. You can “shop” these incentives by opening up multiple accounts and banks will give you a bonus for setting it up.

Tracking is key… The only way this works is if you have VERY organized skills and can maintain a simple spreadsheet.

Easy money… This might be the easiest way to earn a couple extra hundred dollars a month. As most employers have digital direct deposit set up, all you would need to do is:

1. Sign up for a bank with direct deposit bonus

2. Log into your employee direct deposit work account

3. Direct that deposit to the new bank

4. Track when close the bank account and switch direct deposits back to your main bank or to a new one with a bonus incentive

Pocket change… So how much can a bank “shopper” get away with doing this scheme and is it Oceans 11 difficult?👇

The End Goal

Bank shot… Since this is more of an active hobby and less a business, the end goal is murky. I imagine a well tuned spreadsheet and calendar for you continually shop these deals and earn hundreds of dollars per month.

After getting a solid tracking sheet, this can be pretty simple to continually do working only an hour a month.

Making $200-$500 for that one hour isn’t a bad gig either!

The breakdown:

• Save a couple months of expenses

• Direct deposit a new bank every month

• Earn $100-$500 for switching every month

• $1,200-$6,000 per year in potential bank bonuses

The MVP

Run bank, run… This is a super easy way to get some extra cash for a vacation, slush fund or to start another business.

But where do you start? Each bank has some perk with some timeline and some fine print. Luckily for us, NerdWallet gave us a quick break down on where to start:

To get this kicked off, I would:

• test it out with a reputable bank

• look for a high bonus amount $300+

• no balance minimums

• low time commitment to keep the account open

Make sure you have enough funds in your current bank account in case you’re unable to access the funds in the new bank for a couple days/weeks

That’s about it. Once you set up the direct deposit to the new account, check in every so often to see when that bonus lands ✅ 

Scaling Up

Keeping balance… This is key. You want to avoid having all of your funds spread out across multiple bank accounts and not be able to access them 👎

Organization can make or break you.

1. Start by recording how much you have in your current bank account

2. Then direct deposit to a new one for the bonus

3. Record:

   1. Bank account open date

   2. Bonus amount

   3. Number of direct deposits needed

   4. Bank account close date

4. Then do it again with another bank

5. And again

Most banks require 1 or 2 direct deposits prior to issuing the bonus

The maximum you can do this is likely around once a month. (W2 employees get 2 paychecks per month)

There’s not much else to this, other than to be a freak in the (spread)sheets and maintain that organization!

Viability:

1 [building spaceships] 🚀 to 5 [easy peasy] 😊 

Having withdrawals… This isn’t a business or a hustle. It feels more like a very simple financial “hack”. An easy way to get an extra couple hundred bucks in your bank account every month with little to no effort.

If you try this, hit me up on Twitter @cantbemikerich and let me know how it goes!

(As usual each business will have it’s own setbacks, and it’s all about the execution and consistency rather than just having the idea 😉)

It’s a great day to be great!

Love, Mike

 👋