Spoiler alert. Physical labor!
Flipping.
That's how I did it.
The first time I tried flipping I was buying and selling knickknacky items from thrift shops and selling them on craigslist and Facebook marketplace. After that I discovered the world of storage auctions and only delved into it one time. I turned my $20 investment in a 10 x 10 storage unit into almost $300. I got lucky on that buy, because there happened to be one large cardboard box filled with antique china that I sold for a total of $250. I then sold the rest of the contents including speakers, storage cabinets and Christmas decorations for peanuts.
That may seem like a pretty good deal but the problem is that it takes a lot and a lot of work, storage capacity and hauling ability to purchase storage auction units on a regular basis. Think about moving someones entire house worth of stuff every week. Some people do make that their full-time living but it's a bit too much for anyone who also hold down a day job or in my case a night job.
One random day that could've been going like any other we had the unfortunate dilemma of dealing with a broken dishwasher. I'm a pretty handy person and so I figured I could probably just take the thing apart and find the broken piece, buy a new part and fix it myself. Not only did that end up being a more cost-effective method of dealing with the problem I realized just how easy it was to take apart appliances and fix them and how cheap the replacement parts tend to be.
Then came the craigslist browsing. I began searching for items that I knew people might have a hard time getting rid of but also might be easy to fix. That item ended up being washers and dryer's. The thing is, most people when something breaks on their washing machine, are quick to throw it out, go to the nearest home-improvement store and drop 1000 or more dollars on a whole new set. They then put out a desperate add in the free section of craigslist for someone to come haul off of their old washer and dryer because their fancy new ones are about to be delivered that afternoon.
That's where I came in. I was ready with my truck empty to come and pick up those appliances and haul them back to my house put them in my garage clean them replace the broken part which usually only costs between $5-$20. Then throw them back on craigslist or Facebook for around $100 apiece more or less depending on age and condition.
And the good news is you don't really need to be an expert in appliance repair because everything you could possibly need to know on fixing even specific models of washers and dryer's can be found on the greatest educational tool of this generation, YouTube.
Using this tactic I was easily able to cover my utility bills or any other lingering debts I had that month. Me and my fiancé also rented out our extra bedrooms in our house to mostly cover the cost of our monthly mortgage.
Had I not had a full-time job I could've easily made this my full-time gig. Some days I would seriously consider it because I could make more money than I did in two or three days at my job in a couple hours.
So, if you have the time, the capacity, and some basic tools this could work for you as well. You could maybe even turn this into a full-time job if you don't currently have one.
thanks for reading if you would like me to delve into more specific details and tips on this subject let me know I'd be more than happy to share what I've learned.
Thanks- Donovan T.
- note. The majority of this article was written with talk to text so there may be some grammatical errors please excuse them! Thank You!