Don't Be Fooled By Get Rich Quick Schemes on Instagram

PSA: Get rich quick schemes seem like they are too good to be true....because they are.

This post is honestly meant to be a PSA. I thought about keeping my mouth shut, but seeing ad after ad of "easy" ways to make money, I just can't take it anymore. If you haven't seen them already, here are a few examples of get rich quick schemes that are way too good to be true:

1. Renting our your apartment/home without owning real estate: You might have heard of the term 'rental arbitrage.' It is pretty much when you sign a long-term lease and then turn around and rent out the place to someone else as a short term rental. Since short term rentals cost more money, you make money even after you pay the rent. However, this is much easier said than done. For one, this works best in a house, most rental units in a building will not allow Airbnbs or short term rentals, so this is not possible everywhere.

Second, you absolutely have to tell your landlord that this is your intention. You can't just rent out a place long term and then turn it around and rent it to other people without consent from your landlord. And if you do tell your landlord, there is either a chance that you can't do that (by laws of the building, landlord just doesn't want to, etc) or your landlord may ask for a cut of the revenue to allow this to happen.

Third, you still need start up cash to run this type of business. For one, you will need to furnish the place as most apartments/houses will not come furnished already. Plus, you will need to stock utensils, plates, spices, etc, have working wifi and TV/streaming options, which are now expectations that short term renters have when renting out a place. It's not like you can start with absolutely nothing.

2. Selling options in the stock market: I hate it when people talk about how to make money by selling covered calls. In order for you to do this, you actually have to own 100 shares of a stock before you can even start selling covered calls. While you're getting "free money", you actually need to start with a significant amount of money in order to do this strategy. You can technically sell call options without owning 100 shares in a stock, but that is called a naked call and your investment account needs to be approved to trade at that level. And in the instance that your call option gets exercised, you will then need to purchase the shares of the stock needed to then give to the person who exercised your call option.