As I stated in my introduction post, I have been brainstorming ideas to make money for as long as I can remember. A friend and I will constantly bounce ideas off of each other to see how realistic they are and to see how truly interested we are in them. As a college student, I would like any possible way to make extra money, preferably with as little effort as possible, however effort is almost always required.
Typically, my best brainstorming spot is lying in bed right before I go to sleep. I will usually browse the internet and social media while trying to pin posts and items to entrepreneurship ideas. Well, last night, I came up with one idea.
My idea is selling wooden pallets. I was looking on Craigslist, and there were plenty of ads for FREE wooden pallets. Well I was thinking, are there any companies that might buy used pallets? Yes, there are!
All you need to do is contact these people to pick up the pallets. Next, start contacting companies that would be interested in purchasing them. Some of these companies may include local manufacturers, companies that ship a lot of products, etc. Many of these companies would buy 25-100 pallets per week. Another option is to sell to wooden pallet distributors. There are many companies that simply buy, manufacture, and sell these pallets. Pallet distributors will buy pallets from you in bulk, so they will pay less for the pallets, but will often pick them up and makes it a lot easier.
Now the numbers part: Depending on quantity and condition, you can sell these pallets for $2.00 to $3.50 each! Imagine that, you are getting these pallets for FREE and reselling them for basically 100% profit (minus gas and other expenses). Say one company wants to buy 50 pallets at $3.00 per pallet; that is $150 (minus gas) of almost pure profit! Or, maybe a company wants only 25 pallets but will pay $3.50 each. The result of that is $87.50 again, almost pure profit. This could be done multiple times per week. Let's say you get one sale per weekday, based upon 50 pallets at $3.00 each, that is $750 per week for minimal effort!
To take advantage of getting FREE pallets and reselling them, all you need is a truck (or a trailer) and the ability to lift pallets. You may also need to do some minor repairs, but this is easy. The pallet distributors may even purchase broken pallets, but obviously they will pay less for them. If you decide to do some repairs, you can just use the wood from other broken pallets to remove the cost of wood from your expenses.
This is just one SIDE HUSTLE. I will try and post a new side hustle regularly, so keep an eye out for them!