Adventures in thrifting income from the pay per pound Goodwill - Day 30.
We have arrived. The last day of the Goodwill Outlet thrifting experiment.
There were highs and there were lows, but we managed to score some awesome finds and make some sweet profit along the way.
Today was another day of quantity as there is too much to even fit in just one picture. No item stands out from the pack in terms of profit margin, but all are solid items. Check them out!
Today is April 16th and it is day 30. Let's see what I found this Monday.
I'm not keeping too much today. Those are Brooks Brothers pants with the tags still, but are dirty as they probably fell on the filthy floor at the Goodwill. They are my waist size, and about 3-4 inches too long. I can get them hemmed in a bit.
The other items I am keeping are some safety glasses, Easter egg dye pots, beginner advanced reading for children, and the shiny lid for @fullcoverbetting. Oh, and the Red Alert manual for the nerd shelf.
Things for sale of note include:
- iRobot virtual wall device
- Corel Painter X Educational edition
- Three audio cassette sets for books by author Lois McMaster Bujold
- Tony Robbins "Get The Edge" CD set and "The New Money Masters"
- Two WACOM Digitizer II drawing pads
- Uniden submersible phone (only)
- Some old soda bottles, TOPP COLA, TAB, and Coke
- A crapton of prescription glasses
- Breadmaker pan
- Foot pedal with USB connection for dictation start/stop
- GE A/C remote control (big bucks as far as used remotes go)
Oh and check out these cool peacock cards that I will hand over to my wife to use as thank you cards. They are beautiful.
Sales!
I think it is a fitting end to sell something we picked up on the very first day today. That set of CCR records sold.
Three items from yesterday sold. Office for Mac, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and the car radar detector.
Also sold was the Chakra balancing book and CD set and some ink.
Not pictured is the 6 CD set of music samples. It sold just after midnight last night and I packed them up to get them headed out to the buyer.
Oh, and that huge lot of 223 golf balls sold for $90.99 in total. I paid $10 for it. Shipping was up in the high $20's though. I actually had to split it into two different boxes. Haven't done that in awhile.
Day 30 Totals
Total Spent Today: $26.34
Running Total Spent: $463.88
Total Listed Price Today: $395.74
Running Total Listed Price: $6420.51
Total Sales: $2186.20
Total Profit: $1300.78
That's an average profit of $43.36 per day for 30 days. That total will continue to go up and the only work required will be to pack it up and drop it off.
As always, tomorrow is a new day and a new thrift! Oh, wait. This is over now. Disregard.
I will give you a rundown of how much I continue to earn as the sales trickle in. Not many things are better than that "Cha-Ching!" sound that the eBay app gives you.
Congrats on your project. Sorry to see it end for now, but props for being committed to the process. So many Goodwills are thinning out on their housewares/electronics to focus on clothes, so I enjoyed seeing the thrill of the hunt with your series.
FedEx is usually cheaper than USPS for larger/heavier shipments.
Speaking of Tony Robbins, check out a HUGE Tony Robbins haul I found last year with some Star Wars stuff...
LINK HERE
Oh man, what a freaking haul! How that much sealed TR stuff can end up at the thrift store is just crazy to me. So much obvious money there :D
Very interesting to have seen various stages of this experiment; impressed with how much you managed to make!
And that total will continue to grow!
@getonthetrain where are my lids, where are my lids????
Really miss new post about your adventures in the goodwill outlet!
Aw shucks man - I miss finding the money!
I gotta get the house in order and stuff as the wife is coming back this weekend. Plus, I was darn tired and needed to recoup a bit.
I've been selling $120 per day in revenue since I stopped though!
Can imagine. Both, as being tired and having to clean up the house!
The money keeps flowing in, which made it worthwhile.
These posts were the first ones I did read in the morning, always interested what you had found and if you made any sales!
A little curious about how it did help your steem account, because you probably would need to add this to your earnings. The first posts, weren't a big success, but more and more people did find it interesting and started to follow the series!
Oh, well as for Steemit earnings that is different as I normally used to write something decent 5 days per week.
That's an insane amount of stuff to get in one day @getonthetrain.
Why oh why would someone buy Corel Draw? I would never think to buy that and sell it on.
Glad to see you found some more dice. Do you have enough now to sell in a job lot?
I've really enjoyed watching you do this, despite only getting in at the end. Do you have another project up your sleeve?
Have a fun day! 😊
People buy the darndest things. Were you around when I got the huge lot of vintage computer software that nearly all sold overnight?
I'll have to gather all the dice and see. Oh, and my next project is taking care of crap around the house!
Ha, ha, ha @getonthetrain. I'm not sure I so interested in the "taking care of crap around the house" project. When I first started on Steemit (last December) for some reason, I was inspired to do a lot of deluttering which was great and gave me something to post about. Sadly, it seemed to fizzle out. 😂
I wasn't around when you sold the vintage software. Vintage games I can understand because there's a nostalgia element, but software? I just don't get that at all! 😁
Here is the post when I found the software: https://steemit.com/thrifting/@getonthetrain/goodwill-outlet-income-experiment-thrifting-picking-and-finding-profit-day-16-vintage-software
And the next day when most of it sold: https://steemit.com/thrifting/@getonthetrain/goodwill-outlet-income-experiment-thrifting-picking-and-finding-profit-day-17-sales-bonanza
Thanks for the links @getonthetrain. I still find that really bizarre. Maybe collectors buy it thinking it will appreciate in value rather than having a use for it. Especially that IBM stuff.
You had a great haul that day. I think your thrift shops are better than our charity shops. It's mostly old tatt here. I used to be able to buy old Lexicon games and Scrabble games with wooden tiles but people caught onto their value and I haven't seen either for a couple of years. 😢
Yeah, British charity shops certainly aren't as good as the thrift shops here.
Though I did pick up a large collection of Warhammer figurines from the British Heart Foundation store.
My best find was at another charity shop though, I can't remember which one. I was buying a Charles Tyrwhitt shirt and noticed two rings behind the cashier. I asked if they were for sale and if I could see them. They were both chunky 18k gold rings. I asked how much, and she said 5 pounds each. So of course I now own those. 😀
Wow. Good finds @getonthetrain. I think the big charities must have professional "checkers" nowadays so the valuable stuff isn't often sold in the shops.
The best stuff I've bought has been stuff for the kids, especially after Christmas!
Since I've stopped doing much crafty stuff i look less nowadays although, I find, they are still very good for leather handbags! 😂
@getonthetrain that was so much FUN. I wish it was not going to end. I really think that you want to continue and not STOP here..................
Haha, I gotta take a break from thrifting now
@getonthetrain you really did it and it's my pleasure to congratulate you. when some of us got stack due to some issues, you went forward and you achieved your goals.
I think I've learnt also courage and persistency from you. Getting these items was not easy but you really did it and make a profit at least. It may not be that much there but here its a real project almost reach 5 Millions uganda shillings...hehe....you can start a midium soap manufacturing machine and start earning daily from that.
$1300 is just the 30 day point. It will continue to increase.
Wauhhh...great
The only thing is after awhile it’s starts piling up at home
Gotta keep selling!
Fantastic! What's your next series of posts going to be about?
I'll go back to my personal finance stuff 😀
Not bad at all to earn +1000$ from a side hustle.
After 30 days going daily to the store you must like best friends with the people working there hahaha
Ah yeah, I sure did become friends with two of the employees - Liz and Tom.
Yes yes, but what about the Legos?
Is the dragon head (or maybe a wolf) a lego piece? I do not recognize it.
Probably from a connex battle thingy.
The Wacom tablets... there are too many good, much better, other brands out there for me to try to reuse those. And i don't see a stylus or a puck.
You do have lots of things that will sell.
I am glad the golf balls sold. Those would be a pain if they stuck around.
Keep us informed of the totals. Give us a synopsis.
And, oh yes, we want to see the Nerf lot when you get it together.
Oh, there is some sort of wolf head and a motorcycle half built. I dunno what it is from. This stuff was in a plastic bag. But I pick up all Lego I see. Can't really sell it as you see it here exactly.
It was great to follow your experiment and almost each day I did some relief with the lid porn :)
200$ short of the new target but we can easily say that it was a success. For sure with the fact that you still have the gold.
Maybe we should create a discovery channel soap around it!
I'm really going to miss these posts!
Shit, if storage wars can have a million years of episodes why not thriftin' wars?
American Thrifters?
That could work!
.
Uh, I didn't say that. Day 1 I only kept the wine crate from 1972 and a filter for my HVAC. I have no use for records.
.
Nice job, buddy. Congrats on getting to Day 30. Very interesting to see the process of each day and what you got. That is a very nice profit you reached.
I honestly don't believe many people could do what you just did @getonthetrain
Really? I mean I am glad to have a down day today, but what I did is something anyone can do. Most won't, but most people could.
Did you mean to use would? :D
Yeah a lot of people just don't have the persistence and patience. It does take a certain amount of skill as well to know what may be good or not. Many just do not have that intuitive feel at all.
That's a good total profit over the month, enough to live a comfortable life in my country. Do you sell via eBay only?
I have a hard time selling used stuff here in my country. I've got so many old books that I've listed on these second hand selling sites but nobody bothers to buy them.
Yea, normal books are a very hard sell. I pretty much only sell on eBay. I have been known to sell stuff locally too, using Facebook marketplace or Craigslist.
I can see it now, coming to TDC - - Goodwill Pickers - - - Featuring getonthetrain.
Amazing side hustle project!
Thanks, a little effort can go a long way. 😀
So, you are not going to continue with this little hustle? It was fun following your project! And I am looking forward to read the updates on the sales and profit you will have made, once you’ve sold the remaining wares.
Oh, it seems that there were a few people that enjoyed this experiment in income. I will always thrift, but I got some other stuff that needs my time right now.
Well, good luck with whatever project you are currently working on!
Oh, and when you get some time, take a look at ethlend.io It’s peer-to-peer decentralised platform. I am currently playing with it, testing both lending and borrowing. It looks very promising, especially when the next version, 0.3, is released. It can definitely replace the Lending Club as my preferred way of for-profit p2p-lending. I’m thinking that if I can put aside around $10,000 and use it to fund enough loans with an average monthly premium of 3% – which is not an unusual of a particularly high premium rate for this platform – I then could cover all my monthly food expenses just by collecting the interest. It might turn into another brick in the – currently under-construction – fortress of my future financial independence.