Many people don't realize it, but one of the easiest ways to make money is to refrain from spending it. Let me put it in clearer terms, if you are more selective in how you spend money, you will find your cash goes a great deal further. This need not restrict a fun lifestyle. Quite the contrary, the more you learn to control spending on nonsense, the more money will be available for those jet skis you have been eyeing.

So start with the place that we all spend far too much on, our stomachs. There is no reason to spend excessive amounts of hard earned cash on groceries. Not only can you save thousands each month, but you will end up eating much better. How do you do this? Simple, pick two nights when you splurge. Two nights a week, every week, go out to great restaurants. There are many good reviews of restaurants on the Internet. I even know of a blog that has some great stuff. Anyway, these two nights, you don't have to worry about shopping, driving to the grocery store, etc. By the way, most really wealthy people rarely go to grocery stores themselves.

Wait, I know what you are thinking. How can you save money by going out to eat? The answer is that during the other five days, you eat breakfast cereal for dinner. It is easy, nutritious, and you can stock up. If you do it right, you only have to go to the store 2 or 3 times each year. The best thing is, no one has to know! When you tell your colleagues at work about the latest restauatants you have dined in, they will start thinking that you have enough money to go out every night! They will give you more respect and within no time, you will find yourself up for that big promotion! Remember, everyone likes people who seem like they have a lot of money. All you have to do is act the part. After you get your promotion and raise, you will find that you can eat out four or five times a night. In fact, keep working on your image, and one day you will be eating out every night for real!

The latest trend among the really wealthy is to buy exotic animals and keep them as pets. No longer content to keep dogs and cats, today's wealth is taken to pigmy hippopotami and giant snakes. For those who are clever (and a bit fearless), there is a great deal of money to be made in becoming a wild animal broker.

First, you must check out all the legal requirements of where you live, where you intend to sell the animals, and where you intend to capture them. While you are at it, sit down with a zoologist or two and really learn about the animals which you are going to be selling to nice families. A kid may convince his father to get him a jaguar, but if you sell such a beast and it eats the family, it is you who will be in trouble.

Unlike a dog, when a family buys an exotic animal, they expect to be spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on its upkeep. Take a giant Anaconda. After getting the world's biggest species of snake (actually well before), you should sell the owner an enormous tank. It must be big enough for the snake to not get bored. Such tanks can cost upwards of $50,000. With a 50% mark-up on giant glass tanks, that's $25,000 in your pocket. Next, before you sell the snake, explain that it will need to be fed one full grown sheep every two weeks. For their convenience, you should provide the sheep. You can keep a small herd for about $200/month on a friend's farm. Make sure to keep at least one male and one female. The rest you can sell for $5,000 each. That's a profit of $9,800 a month. Add that to the $25,000 for the tank, and you are earning $142,600 a year.

As for the snake itself, find a trapper who will get you a young one for about $100. Ship him by sea for another $100 and for $200 in expenses, you now have a giant snake which you can sell for about $50,000!

So you see, this has quite extraordinary potential. Just do your research and determine what you will be doing before you get the snake. Otherwise, you could end up with a nasty giant snake in your apartment that has a hankering for lamb chops.

One of the greatest untapped sources of wealth building today is through use of online auctions. There are now quite a few of these and their popularity keeps increasing every day. While many view them as a way of getting some cash for items that are no longer needed, they really should be viewed as a way to compete with the biggest retailers without leaving your home.

How can you make lots of money from online auctions? Easy. The key is that you must buy and sell many items every day. Many times, people will put up whole crates of merchandise on an online auction. You could see, for example, a crate of twenty pairs of sneakers that some retailer couldn't sell and just wants to dump. Bid for the case. At the same time, start listing the sneakers individually for sale. You will get a lot more for the individual pairs of sneakers than the guy selling the case. You just need to make sure that if you take orders for the individual pairs, that you do win the auction for the case. After you win, have the case shipped to you and break it down into individual components.

Make sure that you actually charge more for the shipping than the actual shipping cost. Retailers do it all the time. That's why they charge you for shipping "and handling." Anything extra you have to do for merchandise to get it ready for shipping is considered "handling." This is where the extra dollar on each order can add up.

The great thing about doing business with the online auctions is that it is very easy to set up an account and start selling. Setting up a traditional retailer store or even e-commerce website can take a long time. With online auctions, you can do it in about two minutes. There are even people who make fortunes buying and selling cars and houses on online auctions.