money-making hobbies

[God Mode]

I know of someone that cooks meals for senior citizens for a low price. Pretty delicious too. Better service and stuff like plastic cutlery, condiments etc than a lot of take out restaurants which try to nickle and dime you.

 

[jackace]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
My wife and I do yard sales and estate sales on Saturday mornings as a hobby. We buy items to resell on eBay and Amazon. Overall it takes about 4 hours out of a Saturday, plus time listing on eBay, communicating with buyers, and shipping; maybe 15 hours or so a week for each of us. We both hold full-time jobs too. Last week we made $1700 on eBay, not including the shipping & handling fees. Maybe another $350 on Amazon. Last week was a better eBay week than normal because of a few big items on eBay. Normally we average between $3K-$4K+ a month. Decent money for a weekend hobby.

That's a damn good money making hobby. 3k-4k a month? That's more than many people make at a full-time job.

 

[SSSnail]

Originally posted by: Lurknomore

Originally posted by: edro

Originally posted by: SSSnail

Originally posted by: ivan2
stocks. not necessarily making money at this moment...

I beg to differ... You can always make money in the stock market regardless of conditions, you DO have to know what you're buying and selling, and when.

You need an infomercial spot on TV at 3AM.

I buy houses for pennies on the dollar- FREE and CLEAR!
Oh, look another gov. auction- a $150,000 house for $287- holy sh*!
My sis just bought the house next door- a $120,000 for $155- FREE and CLEAR!!!
For $.00 on the $$$!!!

This is why, at the end of your life, you guys will always be talking about doing things.

I'm not saying that it's easy; it takes guts, intuition, some research and calculated risks to make money. There are bogus money making schemes, then there are real ones, like the one I mentioned. This is also another reason why only 5% of people controlling 95% of the money in the world.

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
My wife and I do yard sales and estate sales on Saturday mornings as a hobby. We buy items to resell on eBay and Amazon. Overall it takes about 4 hours out of a Saturday, plus time listing on eBay, communicating with buyers, and shipping; maybe 15 hours or so a week for each of us. We both hold full-time jobs too. Last week we made $1700 on eBay, not including the shipping & handling fees. Maybe another $350 on Amazon. Last week was a better eBay week than normal because of a few big items on eBay. Normally we average between $3K-$4K+ a month. Decent money for a weekend hobby.

Shens to 3k-4k a month doing junk sale resales on Ebay. And how much do you blow buying the "speculative" stuff you resell? And how much that you buy don't sell the first 2 times it's listed? And how much do you buy that NEVER sells or you lose money finally selling? And where the heck do you pile up all this crap while you wait to resell it? Boxes are not cheap, either, if you ship large stuff, nor is packing materials. And NO, I don't want your book or CD on how to make money on Ebay using estate sales, yard sales and garage sales. Ebay has flushed itself down the crappier lately, with high fees and seller and buyer disinterest. And with the economy also in the dumps, this makes your claim even more unbelievable.

You would have had more luck convincing me you made that much doing junk resales on Craig's list though.

 

[preslove]

I want to start making my own bdsm equipment and eventually sell it. Making leather floggers doesn't look particularly hard.

 

[El Guaraguao]

Ive made a hobby out of painting cars. buy cheap, paint and sell for double triple the price that i bought it for. a lot of "internet" foks think its the stupidest idea, but im reaping in the cash not them. last month I made $1500 cold hard cash by doing this.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
My wife and I do yard sales and estate sales on Saturday mornings as a hobby. We buy items to resell on eBay and Amazon. Overall it takes about 4 hours out of a Saturday, plus time listing on eBay, communicating with buyers, and shipping; maybe 15 hours or so a week for each of us. We both hold full-time jobs too. Last week we made $1700 on eBay, not including the shipping & handling fees. Maybe another $350 on Amazon. Last week was a better eBay week than normal because of a few big items on eBay. Normally we average between $3K-$4K+ a month. Decent money for a weekend hobby.

Shens to 3k-4k a month doing junk sale resales on Ebay. And how much do you blow buying the "speculative" stuff you resell? And how much that you buy don't sell the first 2 times it's listed? And how much do you buy that NEVER sells or you lose money finally selling? And where the heck do you pile up all this crap while you wait to resell it? Boxes are not cheap, either, if you ship large stuff, nor is packing materials. And NO, I don't want your book or CD on how to make money on Ebay using estate sales, yard sales and garage sales. Ebay has flushed itself down the crappier lately, with high fees and seller and buyer disinterest. And with the economy also in the dumps, this makes your claim even more unbelievable.

You would have had more luck convincing me you made that much doing junk resales on Craig's list though.

That's the thing. We don't resell "junk." While most yard sales and estate sales are primarily composed of junk, if you have an eye and a bit of experience you can pick up some great stuff. I'll give you an example.

Not long ago I went to a yard sale where the lady was primarily selling shoes. Looking through the shoes I found two pairs of Dolce and Gabbanas, a pair of Pradas, and two pairs of Manolo Blahniks. Yeah, I'm not too proud to admit that I've watched an episode or two of Sex in the City. I knew they weren't fakes because most of them still had their original Neiman-Marcus stickers on them and a couple had their original boxes. I asked the lady how much and she wanted. She told me 3 dollars a pair. 15 bucks total for about $3500 retail of shoes. I asked her if she'd take 12 bucks for the 5 and she looks at me and says "Well, they ARE designer shoes, so my price is firm." I kind of chuckled about it gave her what she was asking for.

One pair of the Blahniks sold on eBay for $270. The other went for $330. The Pradas only went for $35 and the D & G together brought in @ $150. All for a $15 dollar investment, plus gas, and my time. We find stuff like that all the time. I've bought $500 worth of jewlery for $5. Klipsch speakers for $20 that sold for $280. Mac software for $75 that made about $700. 2000 CDs for $1700 that brought in about $14,000. I could give you many more examples. Not everything makes 100X its purchase price, but just about everything earns four or five times the original investment.

We are silver power sellers on eBay. Over the last 30 days we've brought in $3,331.78. We've averaged @ that figure for quite some time. If you're that interested, PM me and I'll be happy to provide proof of my claim.

As far as storage, the items don't take up all that much space. It's just my wife and I living in a 4/3 with about 2500sf, not including about 700sf in two upstairs areas that are unfinished, which we use for long-term storage. One of the spare bedrooms is used as the staging area for eBay items we are selling. We also have a separate packing and shipping area.

Generally we only buy items that sell, but we've been doing it for almost 9 years and have enough experience to know what will and what won't sell. Things that don't sell are placed in long-term storage, then we have a garage sale once a year to get rid of it. Anything that doesn't sell at the garage sale gets donated to Goodwill.

Hope that answers your shens call. btw, I'm not selling any book or CD and don't feel like giving my secrets out on the subject anyway. There's already enough competition out there.

 

[racolvin]

I've been making candles for several years. It's a hobby and I make a little bit in sales, mostly because I don't really push it - only a few people know about it and I'll sell some by word of mouth. I do have a couple of wholesale accounts but they are very low volume, so it's not like I make piles of cash from doing it But I enjoy doing it and I'd be making them anyway, so I figured I might as well sell some when I can.

 

[Auryg]

You could try starting a website - I just launched TheSidehatch.com about a month ago and yesterday I made $2.25 (my best day yet!). Or you could just play games there and win prizes, kinda like that gamevance somebody else mentioned.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: racolvin
I've been making candles for several years. It's a hobby and I make a little bit in sales, mostly because I don't really push it - only a few people know about it and I'll sell some by word of mouth. I do have a couple of wholesale accounts but they are very low volume, so it's not like I make piles of cash from doing it But I enjoy doing it and I'd be making them anyway, so I figured I might as well sell some when I can.

How do you do it?

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Originally posted by: Auryg
You could try starting a website - I just launched TheSidehatch.com about a month ago and yesterday I made $2.25 (my best day yet!). Or you could just play games there and win prizes, kinda like that gamevance somebody else mentioned.

No offense, but isn't this advertising?

 

[Firebot]

I sold off platinum in Everquest a few years ago for about 1400$ total. Not bad when I got all the plat simply leveling (1 million plat back in the Planes of Power days). Now it's poker.

 

[Firebot]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
My wife and I do yard sales and estate sales on Saturday mornings as a hobby. We buy items to resell on eBay and Amazon. Overall it takes about 4 hours out of a Saturday, plus time listing on eBay, communicating with buyers, and shipping; maybe 15 hours or so a week for each of us. We both hold full-time jobs too. Last week we made $1700 on eBay, not including the shipping & handling fees. Maybe another $350 on Amazon. Last week was a better eBay week than normal because of a few big items on eBay. Normally we average between $3K-$4K+ a month. Decent money for a weekend hobby.

Shens to 3k-4k a month doing junk sale resales on Ebay. And how much do you blow buying the "speculative" stuff you resell? And how much that you buy don't sell the first 2 times it's listed? And how much do you buy that NEVER sells or you lose money finally selling? And where the heck do you pile up all this crap while you wait to resell it? Boxes are not cheap, either, if you ship large stuff, nor is packing materials. And NO, I don't want your book or CD on how to make money on Ebay using estate sales, yard sales and garage sales. Ebay has flushed itself down the crappier lately, with high fees and seller and buyer disinterest. And with the economy also in the dumps, this makes your claim even more unbelievable.

You would have had more luck convincing me you made that much doing junk resales on Craig's list though.

That's the thing. We don't resell "junk." While most yard sales and estate sales are primarily composed of junk, if you have an eye and a bit of experience you can pick up some great stuff. I'll give you an example.

Not long ago I went to a yard sale where the lady was primarily selling shoes. Looking through the shoes I found two pairs of Dolce and Gabbanas, a pair of Pradas, and two pairs of Manolo Blahniks. Yeah, I'm not too proud to admit that I've watched an episode or two of Sex in the City. I knew they weren't fakes because most of them still had their original Neiman-Marcus stickers on them and a couple had their original boxes. I asked the lady how much and she wanted. She told me 3 dollars a pair. 15 bucks total for about $3500 retail of shoes. I asked her if she'd take 12 bucks for the 5 and she looks at me and says "Well, they ARE designer shoes, so my price is firm." I kind of chuckled about it gave her what she was asking for.

One pair of the Blahniks sold on eBay for $270. The other went for $330. The Pradas only went for $35 and the D & G together brought in @ $150. All for a $15 dollar investment, plus gas, and my time. We find stuff like that all the time. I've bought $500 worth of jewlery for $5. Klipsch speakers for $20 that sold for $280. Mac software for $75 that made about $700. 2000 CDs for $1700 that brought in about $14,000. I could give you many more examples. Not everything makes 100X its purchase price, but just about everything earns four or five times the original investment.

We are silver power sellers on eBay. Over the last 30 days we've brought in $3,331.78. We've averaged @ that figure for quite some time. If you're that interested, PM me and I'll be happy to provide proof of my claim.

As far as storage, the items don't take up all that much space. It's just my wife and I living in a 4/3 with about 2500sf, not including about 700sf in two upstairs areas that are unfinished, which we use for long-term storage. One of the spare bedrooms is used as the staging area for eBay items we are selling. We also have a separate packing and shipping area.

Generally we only buy items that sell, but we've been doing it for almost 9 years and have enough experience to know what will and what won't sell. Things that don't sell are placed in long-term storage, then we have a garage sale once a year to get rid of it. Anything that doesn't sell at the garage sale gets donated to Goodwill.

Hope that answers your shens call. btw, I'm not selling any book or CD and don't feel like giving my secrets out on the subject anyway. There's already enough competition out there.

Now that's smart entrepeneurship! With a little bit of work a lot of people could do the same. Seriously people do it all the time in WoW, buying low and selling high. Those people can do the same in real life and actually get something of value for doing it.

Too much work for me though.

 

[Auryg]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante

Originally posted by: Auryg
You could try starting a website - I just launched TheSidehatch.com about a month ago and yesterday I made $2.25 (my best day yet!). Or you could just play games there and win prizes, kinda like that gamevance somebody else mentioned.

No offense, but isn't this advertising?

Eh, I didn't link it on purpose, but I figured the guy might want to see it. Of course, it's always in my signature The site isn't impressive yet anyways as it's a constant work in progress.

I guess my advice to the OP would be though - just find something you like to do, and figure out a way to make money doing it. That's what'll make you happiest.

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
My wife and I do yard sales and estate sales on Saturday mornings as a hobby. We buy items to resell on eBay and Amazon. Overall it takes about 4 hours out of a Saturday, plus time listing on eBay, communicating with buyers, and shipping; maybe 15 hours or so a week for each of us. We both hold full-time jobs too. Last week we made $1700 on eBay, not including the shipping & handling fees. Maybe another $350 on Amazon. Last week was a better eBay week than normal because of a few big items on eBay. Normally we average between $3K-$4K+ a month. Decent money for a weekend hobby.

Shens to 3k-4k a month doing junk sale resales on Ebay. And how much do you blow buying the "speculative" stuff you resell? And how much that you buy don't sell the first 2 times it's listed? And how much do you buy that NEVER sells or you lose money finally selling? And where the heck do you pile up all this crap while you wait to resell it? Boxes are not cheap, either, if you ship large stuff, nor is packing materials. And NO, I don't want your book or CD on how to make money on Ebay using estate sales, yard sales and garage sales. Ebay has flushed itself down the crappier lately, with high fees and seller and buyer disinterest. And with the economy also in the dumps, this makes your claim even more unbelievable.

You would have had more luck convincing me you made that much doing junk resales on Craig's list though.

That's the thing. We don't resell "junk." While most yard sales and estate sales are primarily composed of junk, if you have an eye and a bit of experience you can pick up some great stuff. I'll give you an example.

Not long ago I went to a yard sale where the lady was primarily selling shoes. Looking through the shoes I found two pairs of Dolce and Gabbanas, a pair of Pradas, and two pairs of Manolo Blahniks. Yeah, I'm not too proud to admit that I've watched an episode or two of Sex in the City. I knew they weren't fakes because most of them still had their original Neiman-Marcus stickers on them and a couple had their original boxes. I asked the lady how much and she wanted. She told me 3 dollars a pair. 15 bucks total for about $3500 retail of shoes. I asked her if she'd take 12 bucks for the 5 and she looks at me and says "Well, they ARE designer shoes, so my price is firm." I kind of chuckled about it gave her what she was asking for.

One pair of the Blahniks sold on eBay for $270. The other went for $330. The Pradas only went for $35 and the D & G together brought in @ $150. All for a $15 dollar investment, plus gas, and my time. We find stuff like that all the time. I've bought $500 worth of jewlery for $5. Klipsch speakers for $20 that sold for $280. Mac software for $75 that made about $700. 2000 CDs for $1700 that brought in about $14,000. I could give you many more examples. Not everything makes 100X its purchase price, but just about everything earns four or five times the original investment.

We are silver power sellers on eBay. Over the last 30 days we've brought in $3,331.78. We've averaged @ that figure for quite some time. If you're that interested, PM me and I'll be happy to provide proof of my claim.

As far as storage, the items don't take up all that much space. It's just my wife and I living in a 4/3 with about 2500sf, not including about 700sf in two upstairs areas that are unfinished, which we use for long-term storage. One of the spare bedrooms is used as the staging area for eBay items we are selling. We also have a separate packing and shipping area.

Generally we only buy items that sell, but we've been doing it for almost 9 years and have enough experience to know what will and what won't sell. Things that don't sell are placed in long-term storage, then we have a garage sale once a year to get rid of it. Anything that doesn't sell at the garage sale gets donated to Goodwill.

Hope that answers your shens call. btw, I'm not selling any book or CD and don't feel like giving my secrets out on the subject anyway. There's already enough competition out there.

Good update, I appreciate it. It wasn't just me calling shens on your original post, BTW, I showed it to several other people who agreed with me. Now that you were a bit more clear on how you have the storage and processing of the orders situation set up, I am more inclined to believe you. Too bad I don't have 2500sf to do that in, though. It sure would make it a lot easier for me to manage and store collected stuff until it sells if I did. I'm in the process of trying to reorganize my various living areas from random chaos to something more manageable, though. At least you gave me something to aspire too! I also run several small online stores, but the low returns on them is hardly worth the investment in my time lately.

Thanks again for the more detailed post.

 

[Nocturnal]

If you have yourself a great blog with great content, you can make some great money. There is affiliate marketing, AdSense, all kinds of stuff. I wouldn't really consider blogging an actual job. You usually write about what is on your mind or things you've done and what not or maybe even about music, computers, etc. Look at Anand. A hobby grew into a business empire. You never know.

 

[DrPizza]

I raise goats and llamas more or less as a hobby with the intention of making money. I just finished putting up 800 bales of hay in my barn, so I think I've met the criteria for being beyond just a hobby. We're not trying to get rich off of it. But, there are a few benefits: we get to take a few trips each year to pick up or deliver goats to people, or to promote our herd. The mileage, hotel, meals, etc., are tax deductible. Plus, this year we should have enough in income that we can qualify our place as a farm, rather than residential, for property tax purposes. And, at this point, my wife simply needs to get around to filing the necessary paperwork then we'll be sales tax exempt for our farm purchases. This spring, we should have somewhere around 50 baby goats for sale; avg price around $300 each, (and hopefully 3 llamas for sale in the summer.) Although it takes a lot of work, it also keeps me in a little better shape.

 

[chipy]

how about equipment rentals? i was thinking of equipment like chain saws, miter saws, extension ladders and the like.

i know there are B&M places that do that but maybe i can price my rentals a bit cheaper and advertise on craigslist. the only costs that i can think of are the intial purchase price of the items, insurance on the equipment or having the customer put down a security deposit which will be returned to them once the equipment is returned to me in good condition.

what do you all think about that? good? bad?

p.s. - i have to try what TastesLikeChicken is doing... that sounds like a great way to make an extra buck.

 

[TridenT]

Originally posted by: Aflac
WoW

I think you'd make more money doing ur job and have more fun too...