Trade your stimulus check for a bobby pin. Trade that for a hoverboard. Trade that for a tiny home, and on and on until you own a billion-dollar island.
Rebrand laundry detergent for millennials. Pitch the millennial detergent on “Shark Tank” and bomb. Your disaster of a pitch goes viral and is remixed into a wildly popular TikTok song. Sign a record deal with Sony. Make billions in royalties.
Be one of Elon Musk’s sons. Turn eighteen. Take ten billion dollars out of your trust fund. Lose ninety per cent of said funds on careless investments. You are now a self-made billionaire! Congratulations.
Print your own money—like, billions of dollars of money. No one’s checking—even the government’s doing it! Just print it quickly before it’s worth nothing.
Get into astrology—really into it. Become one with the universe. Listen to the universe when it tells you that you’re destined to invent a new cryptocurrency based on your zodiac sign. Take notes as the universe explains the inner workings of blockchain technology and quantum computing. Wow, the universe is really into decentralized currencies! Launch your new astrology coin, targeted to Cancers. Turns out that Elon Musk is also a Cancer. He tweets about it. You make billions.
Stop buying overpriced lattes. Become a billionaire overnight.
Rebrand laundry detergent again, but for Gen Z. They love it. Take your company public, and make good money. Cut to ten years later, when laundry detergent and clothing that isn’t a spacesuit are considered “vintage.” Your stock plummets, and hedge-funders make billions betting against you. That is, until one night, a group of social-media vigilantes short-squeeze the hedge-lord villains trying to take you down. Your stock skyrockets. You become a billionaire. But then you look in the mirror and realize that you have become one of the villains you always swore to destroy. Shrug and continue being rich.
Buy four truckloads of water. Realize that this isn’t what they meant when they said, “Keep your assets liquid.” The next day, the world runs out of water. You are now the only source of water within a two-thousand-mile radius. Elon finds out, tweets about it. You accidentally become the next messiah. Make billions.
Go to the bank. Ask to see a printout of your account balance, and then say to the teller, “Hey, what’s that over there?” When the teller turns away, add six zeros to your account balance. You did it!
Download a budgeting app to track your expenses. Realize that no one has ever cared about you as much as this budgeting app does. It knows you better than anyone else! Fall in love with the budgeting app. Discover that the budgeting app has been sentient this whole time and loves you back. Marry the budgeting app. Realize that wealth should be measured in love, not dollars. Grow old with the budgeting app. On your deathbed, tell the budgeting app that it can remarry if it wants, because apps are technically immortal. The budgeting app tells you that it will never stop loving you, and not to worry—your funeral costs are covered in your budget. Die happy.
Stop paying for extra guac. Become a billionaire overnight.
