One of the things that can trip up some people from starting a side income stream is deciding what to do. Because we’re all different, some people might like or dislike some things better than others. One thing that I’d recommend is trying different things and see what you like best. Here are a few (specifically 6) of the side income methods that we have actually done and a how they worked for us.
Most of these ideas boil down to a pretty simple principle, buy low then sell high and keep the difference. In that aspect, a lot of these are basically just different names for the same thing. There are a few differences between some of them though and a couple different from just the buy low/sell high model.
1) eBay/Craigslist/Offer up/Let go flipping
How well any platform does depends on how popular it is in your area. eBay is pretty much global, but you will most likely have to ship anything you sell on there. In our area, we’ve had a little luck with Craigslist but not really on any other similar app that we’ve tried. Common places to buy items are garage sales, thrift/consignment stores, Or even one of these platforms itself.
2) Retail/Online arbitrage
This is another buy low/sell high model, but instead of finding the inexpensive items (usually second hand) you buy new products either in-person or online to sell on another platform. The most common example is buying clearance items at a retail store like Wal-mart or Target and sell them online.
3) Facebook yard sale groups
We started using yard sale groups about two years ago way before we ever thought of starting a reselling business. Our child had outgrown a lot of toys and we wanted to clean them out before Christmas so they were listed onto local yard sale groups. We were excited to clean out our playroom and thrilled that we had made enough cash to completely cover our child’s Christmas gifts. After that, we sold items on yard sale groups here and there as needed. More recently, we regularly post items on these pages that we feel would sell better locally. The best part of utilizing Facebook for sales is there are no fees and generally no shipping costs. We recommend you always meet in a well-lit public place anytime you meet with someone else to buy or sell items. When it is a larger item that needs to be picked up at our home, we post it on our personal pages so that the buyer is someone we know.
4) Baking
A few years ago Susan decided one day she was going to decorate and sell cakes, so she did. After getting a feel for the business by baking for friends, she officially opened an in-home business, Pure Butter Bakery. By working from home, a flexible schedule and low overhead costs are maintained. The sales goal for this business is an average of one to two orders per week. It took a few years to build but in the past two years, she has produced a steady, healthy side business while spending very little in advertising. Sharing photos of cakes on Facebook and registering the business with Google has been an excellent and free way to advertise.
5) Recycling/Scrapping
I’m sure most people know about taking metal to a scrap yard, particularly copper, and getting paid for it. Not as many people know about things like recycling things like broken electronics. We haven’t done much of the first, but have taken things like scrap wire from a number of various home improvement projects and a broken water heater. For broken electronics, I’m fortunate to live close to a university that has regular surplus sales. At these sales, they sell all kinds of surplus equipment but the primary ones I’ve been interested in are the computers. Most of the ones I’ve picked up have worked just fine, but sometimes you get a machine that doesn’t work. The electronic components like the motherboard, video cards, CPU, etc… contain precious metals like Gold, Silver, and Platinum. There’s a number of companies that will pay you for the broken electronics and then they can extract the precious metals and other materials to be reused. The interesting thing I found is that the computers from the surplus sale were cheap enough that I could recycle the working one (in the case they are too old to be of any use to anyone) and still make more than I paid for it.
Daniel