Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money - Harold Morse Dunphy - Страница 41

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For more than three years a man in a western city realized a net profit of $225 a month, through the very simple plan of renting water filters, and then sold out his business for $5,000. Having a little spare money he bought filters by the gross from the manufacturers, at $12.50 per gross, or a fraction over 12 cents apiece. They were the reversible kind, filled with powdered charcoal and crushed granite, were nickel plated, easily kept clean, and caught all the impurities in the water leaving it clean and pure. He bought the filtering material, charcoal and crushed granite, by the barrel, at a cost of about $6.00 a barrel. These materials he mixed in equal parts, placed them in the filters and was ready for business.

Plan No. 32. Pure Water his First Thought

An epidemic of typhoid fever broke out in his city about that time, the cause of which was found to be in the water supply, and the means of excluding the disease germs from the water that came from the faucets assumed the form of an imperative demand. This man had some circulars printed, calling attention to the efficiency of his filters, and sent boys to distribute them all over the city.

Then agents were sent out to the houses to show the filters and offer them for rent at 10 cents each a month, a fresh filter to be installed every month. The agents were given one-half of all the money they collected, and as nine in every ten households gave them contracts, both agents and originator of the plan realized a steady and handsome income.

At the end of the month the agent would call at each house, take off the old filter, attach the other end to the faucet, set a clean glass under it, turn on the water and show the lady a glass filled with impurities. That would settle it. She would at once hand over another 10 cents for a fresh filter, and the agent would proceed to the next house.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 filters were thus kept rented, the old ones refilled with fresh material, and the man who used this plan and a little money not only saved hundreds of lives, but cleared up over $13,000 for himself in three years’ time.