Man Who Makes $20K A Month Passively Needs Everyone's $4.67 For Spinach Dip By Friday

SCOTTSDALE, AZ—Local man Tyler Brandvold, 29, whose online posts state that he clears "$20K/month passive" through AI side hustles, asked two dinner companions Thursday to split a $14 spinach dip three ways and pay him back by app within 24 hours.

"Cash flow is a mindset," said Brandvold. He then requested $4.67 apiece, collecting $9.34 against his own share of $4.66. He described the extra cent as a "facilitation margin."

A review of Brandvold's books by this reporter found lifetime revenue of $38, from two sales of a $19 online course titled "How I Make $20K A Month With AI." One buyer was his mother, Colleen Brandvold, 58. "He asked at Easter," she said. "I have not opened it." The other buyer, Wendell Haskins, 52, of Tempe, has requested a refund. "It's eleven minutes of him saying 'leverage' over a sunset," Haskins said.

Asked to reconcile $38 against $20,000, Brandvold explained that the larger figure is "adjusted" because it excludes months with no revenue, which he called "non-recurring by definition." This reporter has stepped away from the ledger and will return shortly.

Brandvold's hustle mentor, Rhett Castellanos, 41, confirmed that his own income comes from selling the course to members of his mastermind group. Those members sell the same course to each other and back to him. "It's a closed-loop ecosystem," said member Odalys Ferreira, 34, of Mesa. "Money never leaves. It also never arrives."

Dinner companion Jun Takahashi, 28, said he paid the $4.67 "to make it stop."

At press time, Brandvold had asked a chatbot to write a thread on "the discipline of splitting appetizers like a CEO." He plans to sell the thread as a $19 course to his mastermind group.