Like many of you, I found myself with to much month and not enough money to go around. It was constantly causing me to worry about running out of food for the month and keeping the lights on.
After months of watching a young family who had found a way to be their own bosses, I finally took the plunge.
What plunge you may ask? The plunge was to start selling on eBay and Facebook marketplace. Why? Because, I didn’t have to go get inventory by buying it.
If you are like me and have a lifetime of collectibles, clothes, shoes, books, etc., then you to can start selling without the overhead of needing inventory to start.
I did buy a scale so that I could weigh things that needed shipping. It didn’t cost me an arm and a leg but, it could have if I had to have the best. But, I didn’t need the best, I only needed something that worked. I found my scale at Amazon.
The next item I decided to get was a camera for my computer, when I gathered enough courage to try my hand at YouTube videos. Again, I found this at Amazon.
Now, if you are completely broke and can’t afford even the basic items, you are not just down and out. Facebook Marketplace allows you to create items for sale. You can choose to have people come to you or have a meet up destination.
People will pay you in cash for your item(s) and from there you do what you need to do with that money. One piece of advice is to keep track of what you sell for tax purposes.
Another piece of advice for Facebook Marketplace is to be patient. You don’t need to pay for advertising people will find you during their search for specific items. Be ready to get ghosted which by that I mean people will message you “is the item still available?”, Even if you respond immediately, you never hear from them again.
I stopped meeting people because I had the unfortunate times where I would go to the meeting place and people just never showed up nor answered my text messages.
It can be aggravating, but it is par for the course. Just take it as it comes and try not to get upset as it isn’t worth your time nor sanity to be bothered.
When it comes to eBay, there is a fee to set up a store, but you don’t have to have a store and can list up to 250 items per month without one.
The downside to eBay is when you sell something there are final selling fees that will be deducted from your earnings.
The upside is that when someone makes a purchase you don’t have to sit around and wait for someone to come get the item. The item is paid for and at that point eBay tells you to ship item.
Granted, there are some returns on eBay however it is a very small percentage overall.
You can also decide to start a YouTube channel which you can earn money from if you meet the criteria of so many subscribers and so many viewing hours. It for me is an intimidating process as I am not good on camera. However, it is in my basket for another form of income.
Just remember whatever you chose to do, plan to be in it for the long haul as success takes time. As they say patience is a virtue. I am not the most patient person in the world, but I am learning.
You have nothing to lose but your time and at my age, time is basically all I have.
Best of Luck with Your Endeavors.