Financial Advisors React to the WILDEST Money-Making Schemes

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Money Guy Show

Episode: Financial Advisors React to the WILDEST Money-Making Schemes

Hosts: Brian Preston & Bo Hanson
Date: April 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this energetic and insightful episode, Brian Preston and Bo Hanson react to a range of wild, viral money-making schemes trending online. From day-trading preteens to creative side hustles and “infinite banking,” the hosts use their financial expertise and signature humor to separate fact from fiction—offering listeners straightforward advice on what actually works if you want to build real wealth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Day-Trading 12-Year-Old (01:16–02:09)

• The hosts react to a video claiming to show a “realistic day in the life” of a 12-year-old day trader. The child loses $11,000 trading options.
• Money Guy Insight: Brian and Bo emphasize that social pressure often pushes young people to seek out complex, risky shortcuts to wealth, but these rarely work.
  • Brian (02:19): "Instead of trying to beat the market, be the market. Buy those index funds."
• They highlight index investing as the reliable "cheat code"—not gambling on high-risk trades.

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2. Collecting Water Bottles & Race Discarded Goods (02:38–03:58)

• A video highlights a person collecting discarded water bottles from cyclists and making a few dollars while helping the environment.
• The hosts see this as harmless hustle, not a scheme. Brian jokes about a market for picking up higher-value clothing at race events.
• Memorable Quote:
  • Money Guy (02:59): "There wasn't a huge impact to this. I don't say this is a scheme. I think this works."
  • Banter about a hypothetical "Money Guy Marathon: Clothes Optional" underscores the light-hearted tone.

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3. The "Infinite Banking Concept" & Life Insurance Pitch (04:07–06:38)

• A guest pitches that the wealthy use whole life insurance policies to “become their own bank”, claiming it’s a tax-free, great way to grow wealth.
• Brian and Bo give a nuanced breakdown:
  • Yes, you can build cash value and borrow against it, but the costs are high, and failure to manage it properly creates risk or tax issues.
  • Selling life insurance is profitable for agents, hence the aggressive marketing.
• Key Quotes:
  • Brian (05:54): "Selling life insurance is extremely profitable. Yes, it's true that the uber wealthy do use life insurance for some arbitrage...But that's the wealthy. They also fly in private jets."
  • They stress that this is not a shortcut for everyday savers.

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4. The DIY Above-Ground Pool Business (08:31–09:49)

• A social media pitch proposes buying a stock tank and pool equipment, then selling homemade above-ground pools for $5,000.
• The hosts critique the feasibility, questioning the true market size and pointing out the probable outcome: minimal sales, potential loss, and even a recurring “removal fee” hustle.
• Brian (09:52): "The business is, you sell it to them for $1,000 and then...haul it away for $400 when it’s a cesspool. Get them both ways."

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5. "Mr. Beast" Walmart Scam (10:11–11:11)

• The scheme involves pretending to film a viral “Mr. Beast” video, asking shoppers for a dollar, and walking away without actually giving any prize.
• The hosts immediately pan the idea as both unethical and likely to backfire.
• Brian (10:37): "Yeah, and they get beat down in the parking lot."
• The discussion echoes their theme: schemes involving deception are not worth the risk.

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6. Credit Card Limit Arbitrage (11:11–12:41)

• Guest claims you can apply for multiple travel credit cards, combine the limits onto a 0% card, and game the system for large credit lines.
• Brian and Bo remain skeptical, highlighting that debt must be repaid and this type of workaround is not a path to wealth.
• Notable Quote:
  • Money Guy (12:38): "0 of our clients have 0% interested their way to wealth."

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7. “Business Coach” Simple Path to Riches (12:41–13:32)

• A viral business formula outlines: offer a common service, do it better or risk-free, charge more, and network persistently.
• The hosts critique its simplicity, pointing out the real-world challenge of outperforming the market and charging premium prices without exceptional skill or differentiation.
• Money Guy (13:32): "If it was that easy, everybody would do it."

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8. Storage Unit Flipping Hustle (13:32–14:56)

• A side hustler documents buying a $900 storage unit, uncovering items to flip for a claimed $1,800 value.
• Bo and Brian challenge the sustainability & time investment compared to risk (some units may yield losses).
• Brian suggests a simpler, lower-risk alternative: just sell your own unused stuff first.

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9. The Real Money-Making “Cheat Code” (15:12–15:34)

• Brian and Bo circle back to core, evidence-backed principles:
  • Building true wealth is “slow but simple.”
  • Avoid shortcuts and schemes—stick with proven strategies, like passive investing, financial discipline, and leveraging compound growth.
• Brian (15:34): "There is a better way to do money. Don't cut the corner off and squander your most valuable resource...that's your time."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:16] Day Trading Kid Breakdown
• [02:38] Cycling Water Bottles & Race Discards
• [04:07] Infinite Banking/Life Insurance Pitch Debunked
• [08:31] DIY Pool Hustle Analysis
• [10:11] “Mr. Beast” Grocery Scam
• [11:11] Credit Card Arbitrage
• [12:41] “Simple” Business Formula Discussed
• [13:32] Storage Unit Flipping Reality Check
• [15:12] The Truth About Building Wealth

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Memorable Quotes

• Brian (02:19): "Instead of trying to beat the market, be the market."
• Money Guy (05:20): "There are glimmers of truth in what he was saying...But why on earth should you have to borrow it from yourself?"
• Brian (05:54): "Yes, it's true the uber wealthy do use life insurance for some arbitrage...But that's the wealthy. They also fly in private jets."
• Money Guy (12:38): "0 of our clients have 0% interested their way to wealth."
• Brian (15:34): "Don't cut the corner off and squander your most valuable resource...that's your time."

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

Brian and Bo maintain a playful, skeptical tone, calling out hype, shortcuts, and “get rich quick” culture while uplifting tried-and-true, disciplined approaches. Their candid, relatable banter reminds listeners that building wealth is possible—but it happens through patience, sensible strategy, and not falling for viral “schemes.”

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For proven financial advice and guides, Brian directs listeners to: moneyguy.com/resources

Transcript

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[Brian]

we all like Making money.

[Bo]

Unethical Ways to make money part 12

[Brian]

so why not react to the wildest money making schemes?

[Narrator]

This guy found a genius way to make money.

[Money Guy]

Brian I am so excited about this because when I hear scheme I know that the Internet is about to deliver.

[Brian]

Let's find out that's where the good stuff is. Schemes.

[Day Trader]

Welcome to my realistic day in the Life as an 8 figure 12 year old day trader. Every day I usually wake up around 2am Today I decided to sleep in a little. First thing I do after waking up is make some coffee and go for a run. Feeling a little tired today so I just did a light jog and then we're headed straight to the gym. Gary Vee Motivational speech on Quick back workout, some deadlifts, hoop sesh, shower and we're headed to the office. At this point it's 6am Pacific time. The market opens in 30 minutes so I begin by checking up on my clan and collecting some gold and elixir. 6:30am I see a big dipper formation on the AMD stock so I go in with some options for that position to hit my take profit. I go ahead and cook up some breakfast in the kitchen, come back to a $4,000 loss on that AMD position. I then quickly go into a few more trades here to make all that money back, but we hit another seven thousand dollar loss on Neo stock so a total loss of about $11,000 for the day. I'd say that's a little better than usual for me.

[Money Guy]

There's so much pressure, especially for young people that there is a one only right way to Be productive and efficient and effective. And I just don't think that that's true. That's not been my experience.

[Brian]

Let me go ahead and cut through all the noise and give you the investing cheat code. That's right. Here it is. Lean in. Come on in. Instead of trying to beat the market, be the market. Buy those index funds. There you go. I just summarized it, made it easy. That's the scheme that's going to work.

[Narrator]

This guy found a genius way to make money. He set up a cardboard sign near a cycling track that just said bottles. Pro cyclists often drop their water bottles during races to save weight and go faster. And sure enough, some riders started tossing their bottles right where his sign was. In the end, he collected a bunch of bottles, made about $5, and helped keep the road cleane.

[Money Guy]

Here's the thing. This was good for everybody. It cut down on litter. It was a way for the cyclists to improve their ride. And he made a little bit of money on it. Look, there wasn't a huge impact to this. I don't say this is a scheme. I think this works. I think this is.

[Brian]

Okay, so, look, I'm out of the game on this stuff. But for. There was a season where my wife was running these half marathons, and I did find it amazing that a lot of people just, like, disrobe while they're in the middle of running or cycling or whatever, because they have not been to those races. And then they get hot, and then they're ticked off that they've only run three miles when they got ten more to go. So I think there's probably a whole business out there where people, like, pick up Lululemon or all the other fancy clothes that are just distributed on half marathons or marathon runs.

[Money Guy]

So you saw this clip, and you're like, you know what he had bottled?

[Brian]

What?

[Money Guy]

I'm.

[Brian]

I'm trying to help him.

[Money Guy]

I'm trying to help him set up. And it's going to say clothes on it.

[Brian]

This is not the way you make the money. This was. This is. I'm telling you, there's a better way to do money.

[Money Guy]

Come run the money guy. Marathon. Close. Optional.

[Credit Card Hacker]

Right?

[Money Guy]

That's what I'm hearing. That's what I'm hearing. They don't get.

[Brian]

They don't get naked, but they. They get hot.

[Insurance Expert]

Most people look at insurance as death benefits, and they get money. I got to be able to pass away. The wealthy look at insurance policies as something that grows in assets.

[Brian]

Talking about, they don't use the bank,

[Insurance Expert]

they become Their own bank, they go sell you some life insurance insurance policy on their self which grows in interest that they can borrow from. If I have $500,000 inside that insurance policy, I can borrow from me tax free. So whatever I spend, it's completely tax free. You can live off $5 million inside of insurance policy.

[Brian]

Step one, get $5 million to 10%

[Insurance Expert]

interest because it spits out every single year. This person is going out to the dealership, paying them off every single month and going to pay their giving their money to the banks by paying their mortgage. The wealthy borrow that money from their insurance policy and purchase the house and they paid their self back off with it. They go to the dealership, they purchase the car in full with the insurance policy tax free.

[Brian]

You know, it's not cost free. Expensive whole life insurance.

[Money Guy]

That's right. That's exactly. There are glimmers of truth in what he was saying. There are, you know, you can build up cash value inside a life insurance policy. You can borrow against that cash value. It's a tax free event so long as the policy does not go into lapse. The problem is, is if you want to spend money, you want to use your resources, why on earth should you have to borrow it from yourself? Because now you're playing this game to where you got to make sure the policy stays in force. And one of two things happens. Either you have to pay back that money at some point or it becomes this giant taxable event or you got to die.

[Brian]

You know, this infinite banking thing that you see, the reason you see so much coverage on is because selling life insurance is extremely profitable. Yes, it's true that the uber wealthy do use life insurance for some arbitrage opportunities that they. But that's the wealthy. They also fly in private jets. I don't see you trading in your Southwest tickets to go buy an airplane. First step, step one, go buy a jet. You know, that's what, that's essentially what these guys do when they say, hey, all you have to do is build up $5 million. Nobody's giving you the $5 million. You still have to fund these things. You still have to pay all the cost of insurance. There's a better way. And this is not. That's, that's why it's fitting quite nicely into our scheme. Stick.

[Money Guy]

Brian. I think one of the biggest surprises when you start a business is realizing you're responsible for everything.

[Shopify Rep]

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[Money Guy]

Yeah. And it can be exhausting if you don't have the right systems in place. Which is why having the right tools and the right partner can be a game changer. That is where Shopify comes in.

[Shopify Rep]

Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from startups to popular brands like Allbirds and Untuck it.

[Money Guy]

And they help you get up and running fast. You can build a great looking online store with ready to use templates and and their AI tools can handle things like product descriptions and even improving your product images.

[Shopify Rep]

Shopify can even help with the email campaigns and social media so you can actually reach customers instead of just building something and hoping people find it.

[Money Guy]

And everything from inventory to payments to analytics is all there in one place. So you're not wasting time trying to connect a bunch of different tools. And that's huge because it means you can spend less time on the mundane tasks and more time building something meaningful.

[Shopify Rep]

So start your business today with the industry's business. Best business partner Shopify and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com moneyguy go to shopify.com

[Money Guy]

moneyguy that's shopify.com moneyguy where is daredevil?

[Brian]

I'm right here. Don't miss the return of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again.

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[Brian]

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[Bo]

We're going to take this city back

[Brian]

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[Money Guy]

I can work with them.

[Brian]

This should be tons of fun. Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again now streaming

[Business Idea Presenter]

only on Disney plus okay, this is genius. And behind every genius product idea is a genius business idea. Here's how I would use this above ground pool to make a million dollar business and how you can do it too. I would go to tractor supply and buy a 400 stock tank like this one. Then I would go to Amazon and buy a 200 above ground pool jet and nozzle kit. I would get them to my house. I would build this using YouTube and chat GPT. I would take professional pictures of it and post pictures and videos of it in all of the mom Facebook groups and on Facebook marketplace. I guarantee you you can build these for under four hours and a thousand dollars in materials and sell them for $5,000.

[Money Guy]

So it's hot tubs he's building hot tub. Was it a pool or was it a hot tub?

[Brian]

I Don't think there's a heating element. There's only a filter element.

[Money Guy]

So it was just a miniature ab ground pool basically in this is going

[Brian]

to have a designated market, by the way. I don't, I don't see maybe here in Nashville. I do well, but I just don't see this. I don't see you going to Manhattan and going to the tractor supply store and setting this, setting up this scheme. You're going to end up spending 8,000, no, mark that $12,000 worth of supplies. So you might sell two and one of them is going to be your mama or your grandmama buying your above ground thousand dollar. Nobody wanted swimming pool.

[Money Guy]

I don't see grandma getting in that pool. I don't think that's a grandma safe.

[Brian]

And by the way, here's the business is you, you sell it to them for 1,000 and then you say, hey, in four months when this thing's a cesspool and covered up with all kind of grime and dirt and everything else, I'll haul it away for $400. Oh, look at that.

[Money Guy]

Get it up.

[Brian]

Get them both ways.

[Bo]

Unethical ways to make money. Part 12, you're gonna go to Walmart and you're gonna have your friend follow you recording on his iPhone. Then you're gonna go up to strangers. You're gonna say, do you know who Mr. Beast is? Then you're gonna ask for $1 to cover some of your groceries. They're gonna think they're in a Mr. Beast tick tock video. They're gonna give you $1 and expect for you to give them $10,000 in return. But you're gonna take that dollar and you're gonna walk out of the store. Repeat that 20 times at the Walmart and that's 20 bucks an hour. Work smarter, not harder.

[Brian]

Yeah, and they get beat down in the parking lot. I'm playing this out, by the way. You have to have this guy's hair and you have to make sure you show up with, with the tank top, this tank top, the tank top. People truthfully might be thinking that if they don't give you the dollar, they would get beat down.

[Money Guy]

What about the people where it's like, do you know Mr. Beast? Yes, I do. Can I have a dollar for groceries? No, you can't. I don't think I would just randomly hand somebody a dollar. I don't think this work. I think I really thought through it. I don't think this would work.

[Credit Card Hacker]

So there's a credit card hack where you go to chase.com. you request travel cards. So you get the Marriott, the Ritz Carlton card from Chase, and then you get the United card. They're all Chase cards. And those give you a high limit. So they'll give you like 20, 25k limit because they're traveling cards and they expect you to spend a lot of money. So you'll get like 80k, 90k. And then what you do is you call Chase and you tell them, hey, I want to these cards into one. I want to transfer the credit limits into one card. But you apply for a Chase freedom card, that's 0% interest for 15 months.

[Bo]

A lot of work.

[Credit Card Hacker]

And you move all your credit limits from the travel cards to your Chase Freedom card. Now you have an 80, $90,000 credit card at 0%. 0% for 15 months. So I did that for me. I did that for my wife s, and I did that for my dad. And I created like $300,000 of credit limits.

[Day Trader]

0%.

[Brian]

So,

[Money Guy]

so, but, but then what?

[Bo]

Right?

[Brian]

But okay, so it's not free money. I mean, I guess they think 0%.

[Money Guy]

But what do you do? Like, you rack up this $300,000 of debt, you gotta, you gotta pay it back. I guess maybe he's thinking there's some sort of like arbitrage.

[Brian]

I'll go, this is, this is not the way you make money. Go get out there and get as much credit limit with the banks. Yeah, they'll give it to you. You can go get money from the mob too. They'll give it to you, and then at some point, you got to pay the money back. Bo, how many clients of our firm have come to us? We work with millionaires all across the country. 49 states. I don't think any of them have come from zeroing this 0% interest rate.

[Money Guy]

0 of our clients have 0% interested. Their way to wealth.

[Business Coach]

The simplest path to making money. One, find a service people already buy. Two, do it in half the time, make it twice as easy or remove all the risk. Three, ask everyone you know if they know anybody who wants it. Four, charge more than everyone else. And then five, don't stop when you get bored.

[Money Guy]

Two, and four, where I have the issues, right? So I need to do it in half as much time or remove all the risk. I'm assuming that inside of this thing, no one else has figured out how to do it as efficiently as possible or to remove all the risk. I have some sort of insight that no one else has had that no one else has figured out. That's a really, really difficult thing to do. It sounds great on paper but in practice that might be hard. And then once you do it then you're going to come in and price above everyone else. Well now I got to be really really good at sales because I can go buy this thing for $10 and I'm selling my thing for $20. Can this work, work? Absolutely. Is it as easy as just a little five step process? If it was that easy, everybody would do it.

[Storage Unit Flipper]

I'm finally doing the side hustle that you guys keep asking me to try flipping a storage unit. I paid about 900 for this unit and another hundred dollars to rent a U haul. Let's see if we made any money. At first I really wasn't finding much besides like household items. Then I came across this locked metal box which I brought home. More on that in a bit. There was an old raggedy and all, a bunch of DVDs, a carpet, steam cleaner. This silver tray was really heavy. These can be worth decent money. This old elephant phone was cool. Similar ones are selling for around 100 bucks on eBay.

[Brian]

Bought a bunch of work rece.

[Storage Unit Flipper]

Anyways, had to get this furniture out quick because I only had the U haul for one day.

[Brian]

But behind this drawer just watching this

[Storage Unit Flipper]

and inside the dresser drawers were a lot of broken electronics and some brown sugar. One of the big reasons I bid on this unit was because there was a safe in the pictures. So I grabbed that. I actually found another one too. There were some pretty nice tools in here. And then I scored a Nintendo DS Lite with a bunch of games. There was a car stereo, an RC car frame and then way in the back was a brand new unopened 50 inch TV. This was everything I needed total to keep and sell. One of the lockers cases just had paperwork in it. Another was a poker chip set. Total value is around 1800 bucks.

[Money Guy]

How much time did it take? He said it was a day, but I bet this was like a full day, right? So I'm thinking this like an 8, 10 hour day to go through this. If you're going to make this like replicable, you got to do it over and over and over again. Well, sometimes you might have a storage unit that's going to profit for it. What about the ones where it doesn't have that stuff? What about the ones where you actually take a loss or just break even? If this is something you're passionate about and you just have like a skill set for it, great, do it. But I don't know, this is the way that you're going to necessarily make.

[Brian]

Well, you know, this really did create some like work anxiety because look, I have this work already at my house. You go through your basement, my garage, I can go clean out my upstairs attic. You don't have to go buy somebody else's junk. Sell your junk. There's the scheme that's actually going to make you some money. Sell your own junk.

[Money Guy]

Building wealth is not necessarily easy. And a lot of these schemes want to make it seem like it's a super easy to think. It's not easy. It's a slow process, but it is simple. You don't have to outsmart it. You have to come up with something new. There are tried and true strategies that you can employ that can really help you build wealth. Not the things that we saw in these videos.

[Brian]

Look, if you're brand new to our stuff and you want to know how you really can build wealth, do this. Go to money.com resources. We literally give it away. We tell you what you need to be doing. We talk about wealth multipliers. We show you the financial order of operations. There is a better way to do money. Don't cut the corner off and squander your most valuable resource. Course, that's your time. I'm Brian, this is Bo. Money got team out.