A Big December - DIY Recycling For Income - More Examples Of 100% Free Inventory Saved & Sold For $724
When I worked at a bank, I made pretty good money by most standards. I quit in mid 2015 to work for myself and never looked back.
I made 60% of my old monthly salary in December, mainly by selling recycled items, all by myself. That's a big deal to me, a source of immense pride, and plenty to live on.
Sure, it's not as much as I made from my safe corporate job, but the freedom and satisfaction I've enjoyed since has no price. It's also been a blessing so I could help with my Mom and Dad's serious health issues when a standard job would've certainly interfered.
December Overview:
101 items sold at only $355 in inventory costs! -- Don't be fooled by the scale because 67 of these were sourced for FREE from recycling household items on my city's curbs.
The remaining 34 items I got from thrifting cost me an average of $10.44 each. Talk about low risk, high reward.
This was my third best revenue and profit month in 3.5 years, also second in # units sold.
What was the reason?
For the first time in 3 years, I could FINALLY focus on myself 100%. Family health and/or toxic relationships were not on my plate, and it felt great. I know the system I have is super-profitable and can scale, I just need to make sure I can remain focused. My goal this year is to find a business partner or two to cover more ground in my city since I only source from a small section by my apartment. It's a tiny fraction of my city. There's so much money out there I can't get yet.
Anyway... back to the grind with more recycled items recently sold for pure profit.
For fun, leading off with a small toy treehouse sold for $25.
High end working partial vacuum base sold for $220 with cheap shipping.
Yes, I always show boring vacuum parts, but the money you can make from them isn't boring.
UV light air purifier sold for $89.
Vacuum hose sold for $65.
Complete working PlayStation 2 set sold for $62. Ironically found the same PS2 this week on the curb to restock.
Vacuum power nozzle sold for $60.
52 new skeins of cotton sold for $40.
Printer motherboard sold for parts/repair for $38.
Vacuum canister sold for $35.
Sony headphone charger sold for $26.
Vacuum floor attachment sold for $25.
Hair curling iron sold for $24.
Sealed new computer software sold for $15.
Money aside, these are all things that were not destroyed or wasted. I saved them and people bought them. This helps the environment and helps people save money, when compared to buying over-priced new replacements.
Bonus - almost all items were shipped used recycled boxes, padded mailers and padding. An example of packaging I'm already just about done with after a few days of finding it:
More Recent Recycling:
- Recycled Sales For $740
- Recycled Sales For $507
- Recycled Sales For $1,269
- Recycled Sales For $609
- Recycled Sales For $845
Recent Thrifting:
Keep in mind these are just some highlights. I sell quite a bit more.
As always, do what you can to reject waste and help our planet.
Thanks for your interest and support,
You should have kept the hair curling iron for yourself.
You don't think I have others!? C'mon!!
Awesome! Reminds of of the stuff @getonthetrain does! Do you use eBay to make your sales?
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Thanks. Yep, we commiserate quite a bit here. I rely a lot on eBay since I'm built up on there, but do sell through other channels from time to time. Let me know what rare video games are on your wish list. Given your gaming, I have a GameCube Super Smash Bros Melee game leftover, but it skips after it loads. I've been lazy on sending it off for a cheap professional buffering to get it back in order. I'd obtained a working version at the same time and played it a little bit, but I prefer games like StarCraft or first person shooters like Black Ops more.
Haha that’s awesome! I’m all about the Nintendo Switch nowadays. You guys are inspiring though. Makes me look at bulk pickups a lot different. Might have to go on the hunt next time.
Hey m8, question.
With stuff like the printer motherboard, how do you know it works? Do you hook it up to power and test?
I have a couple of boxes full of old computer parts, thinking I should turn them into money :)
He sells those untested as parts/repairs. Just have to say the item probably works but you aren't sure as you are unable to test it. It'll sell.
Most things I do test, but I do sell things as “untested for parts/repair as is” when I can’t fully test or validate with 100% certainty. I don’t offer returns so it’s a final sale.
This motherboard came from a printer that turned on and seemed to function, but had no ink to fully test. Therefore, I sold this to a guy who had his USB port snap off and the printhead as is to Belize. They always sell, just at a discounted price and a little slower.
P.S. - if the parts are easily identifiable, check them out by model number on eBay to see what they’re selling for (not the price that’s being asked for). I don’t handle computer parts that often. Most boards are from printers, tv’s and appliances as they’re constantly out for me to salvage.
Awesome thanks m8 I thought that may have been the case but wasn't sure, want to get more into thrifting as some income on the side. Now that I have a mortgage want to pay it off as fast as possible.
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Excellent work! My sales in December weren't so hot as I didn't put much effort in, but still pulled in a good amount as a part-time income for a few hours.
eBay tells me that I sold $1,472.06 and 56 items. I get just over 50% of that in profit whenever I have sat down and calculated everything.
I sold one of them sealed webroot things but had to refund. Apparently, the license starts the day the thing is sold and so is often expired. Hope yours is good.
Thanks for the tip on the webroot software. Looking forward to that return request! That’s a good lesson to read the terms on the packaging. I usually do, but the sealed new condition made me neglect to double check the terms. I’ll only lose about $3 on it for the shipping and PayPal fees after they keep the item, although it’s sort of their fault too. I get roughly 4 returns a year, so I have 3 left if they try. Knock on wood.
Happy New Year - good luck with your new lifestyle and with growing the resale business.
I didn’t really thrift much, but mainly focused on listing items I’ve had stockpiled in the queue. I have a ton more, but didn’t need to go nuts just yet.
Awesome stuff. I did something similar up until a few months ago. Now I'm trying to move to 100% location independence, so I'm winding down the reselling.
Also I did most of it on eBay. I don't know if that photo bug affected you. Half of my listings lost all but 1 of their photos! Killed sales dead since people want to see photos. I didn't have the strength to re-take all the hundreds of photos again, so I ended most of the listings affected and gave the items to charity :)
Thank God I didn’t get hit by the photo glitch. I didn’t even know about it. That’s terrible. The storage adds up for me on my phone, but I usually take the pics and upload them into the eBay app instead of using the app to take photos. This also helps me edit the photos better.
What type of items did you generally enjoy selling the most? Any legendary flips? Don’t hold back.
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