the devoted slacker

So I've been flipping for over a year now.

It started out with my boyfriend moving in with me. I wanted to figure out how to pay less for food since he eats a lot. I started extreme couponing. I got stuck with all this extra beauty and cleaning supplies that I got for super cheap, so BF and I started talking about making extra money at the flea market since he didn't have a job. So we started selling at the flea market. I tried selling a lot of different stuff - hair and beauty supplies, cleaning stuff, my old stuff I wanted to get rid of, stuff we found at thrift stores and yard sales. We did best with the hair and beauty supplies, but couponing started getting boring. It was becoming a chore to get up super early in the freezing weather and drag all our shit to the flea market, only to not sell barely enough to pay for the booth. 

We would go to the Goodwill Outlet at least once a week to try to find stuff to sell. The Goodwill Outlet here has bins and bins of stuff in six categories here: clothes, fabric and bedding, shoes, purses and bags, books and other media, and everything else. Books and other media like VHS's, DVDs, and CDs are 25 cents a pound. Clothes and everything else are $1.29 a pound. Needless to say, if you take the time you can find some gems on the cheap. BF and I would mostly check out the "everything else" bins, looking for cool toys, art, or whatever was in decent shape to sell.

I always kept myself from putting stuff up on the internet because I thought it would be too hard. I didn't fully understand shipping and I thought there would be too many scammers. Doing something new scared me.

One night I found a Spanish Speak N Spell box. I opened it up and there was an English Speak N Spell! It was the first thing I posted on ebay. I sold it for $25 when I only spent $1.29 on it! I thought, wow, people actually still buy stuff on the internet and it sometimes goes well!

I was hooked. 

While at the Outlet, I would notice people with their phones looking up books. It took me awhile to realize that books were 25 cents a pound, but once I did, I started figuring out how to sell books on Amazon. I would bring home piles of books after looking them up with the Amazon app on my Iphone. 

I ended up making about a $1000 for the month of April last year. I worked really hard to source for items. I was out at thrift stores about once a day. 

In September of last year, I was really getting tired of my regular job, being a bartender. I had worked at the same restaurant for eight years. Things were changing and I was burnt out. Plus my mom's health was deteriorating and she was unable to drive. I put my two weeks notice into the restaurant and decided to sell stuff online full time.

For a few months, I was not putting the work in like I should have. I guess it was seasonal depression or something, but I made less money than I ever had. I wasn't listing on ebay, I wasn't going out and sourcing. Once I made $11 in two weeks. 

In the last month, I really worked hard to source. I started making an inventory list to see how much money I was making with my items and how long it took them to sell. I started listing more items on ebay, and I'm so glad I did. 

I love Amazon because it's very easy to list your items. Most of the time no pictures are necessary and you only have to do a condition description. Ebay takes more time as you have to take photos and write your own listings, but stuff sells faster. Instead of competing with Amazon Prime or other merchants, on ebay customers can name their own price with the "Best Offer." I might have listed an item for months on ebay, and then it sells quick on ebay, albeit for a lower price, but at least it sells instead of just sitting on my shelves.

One of the most important things to flipping is knowing your product. Because books are so cheap at the Goodwill Outlet, I could bring home massive amounts of books for a cheap price. I figured out what sold and what didn't. What to look for on a cover and on the inside (never buy Book Club Editions!). To this day, I'm still bringing home piles of books, but I'm smarter about it. I'm always getting an education. I think about the money I wasted as Flipping University.

Also important is getting the most out of your shipping supplies. Buy padded envelopes and poly mailers in bulk on ebay or Amazon. Save old boxes. Order Priority Mail boxes and envelopes for FREE on usps.com. I love the padded envelopes. They also insure for up to $50. You may pay a little more for Priority Mail, but it's worth it for higher priced items. I think it's probably less likely for your package to get lost, too!

I've learned that you can't just expect the money to come rolling in just buy sitting on your hands. You have to go out and source, you have to list, you have to stay up on your game. Just because you don't have a set place to be each day doesn't mean it's not work. 

Crowdini is fun! Spend 5 seconds a day and you could win a $25 gift card!

You give your opinion choosing one multiple choice answer to one question per day. If you answer in the majority, you move on in that game. If you don't answer in the majority, you have to start over in another game for that day. The last person left in a game, that has chosen in the majority every day, wins the prize! It's usually a $25 gift card to popular online stores. 

Listerine Total Care 500 ml - 0.02% sodium fluoride: $4 @ Big Lots

Assured Kids Anticavity 532 ml - 0.05% sodium fluoride: $1 @ Dollar Tree

How to find a leak in an air mattress, or anything you blow up!

Wet it, then lather it with a bar of soap. Blow it up, and air will come out and bubbles will form where the leak is!

I NEVER pay cash for magazines. I would NEVER pay cash for magazines! I get free subscriptions to In Style, Cosmopolitan, Real Simple, and many others! Magazines want more subscribers so they can charge more for advertisements on their pages, so they partner up with websites to give subscriptions out. I plug in points to these websites to get me yearly subscriptions for free!

My Coke Rewards - What does my addiction to Coca-Cola get me? Nothing but bad teeth and free magazine subscriptions! Every Coke brand cap and 12 pack has a code on it. Sign up and plug in the codes and you can use them for rewards like free magazines, t-shirts, and other cool stuff. I like to use my points to get All You magazine, which has tons of coupons that save me money!

Recyclebank - Learn about recycling and saving the planet and get some cool stuff, too! Earn points by taking quizzes, reading articles, and making pledges to become a more eco-conservative person! Earn stuff like gift cards, exclusive coupons, or subscriptions to magazines like Country Living and learn a little in the meantime!

Here are some extra ways to make money using just your Iphone!

Ibotta - Ibotta is an app where you complete offers to get major discounts on food, beverages and other stuff! It is available for most stores. Just complete the offers, buy the product, scan and take a pic, and you can cash out money right through Paypal! It's pretty awesome and can help you save money buying things you normally would!

Savingstar - Savingstar can be done through an app or online. I love this one because it's so easy! These are coupons that you just click to activate. Once activated, you buy the product and use your shopper's card (It works for Bi-lo, Ingles, and CVS around here). Once you save $5 into your Savingstar account, you can cash out using Paypal, get Amazon gift cards, or deposit right into your bank account. It's really easy and saves money with only a few seconds of your time!

These aren't scams, but reputable sites that pay you just for searching or clicking on links. You can't live off this, but is a little extra money that you wouldn't have had otherwise, just for being online! It's a fun little way to make some extra dough!

Bing Rewards - Bing actually pays you to search through their site! Search for things as you normally would using Bing.com, and you can rack up points to redeem for Amazon gift cards and other cool stuff!

Qmee.com - This is a newer site that pays you to search and click on advertisement links. Just search as you normally would using your favorite search engine, and links will pop up randomly on the side of your browser (depending on what you search). Each link you click gives you real money you can cash out using Paypal!

Swagbucks - Swagbucks is a site where you complete offers, search, or shop and you get points to redeem for different gift cards like Amazon! This is my favorite so far. It's easy to rack up the points completing offers.