[Finance] Has anyone got a succesful side hustle?

[giveusfalmerplease]

I've done a bit of this in the past. If you know your way around search engine optimisation and have one or two areas of specialist knowledge or practical experience it can help. Read reviews of companies you sign up for. There were, and possibly still are, some cowboys about. If you like writing then there might be an opportunity to help international students with their essays too, proofreading, grammar checks etc.

For side hustles that are successful I know a bloke who goes round charity shops and car boot sales looking for DVDs and clothes he can sell for a profit on ebay. You have to find your niche so you know what you're looking for. For him it's mostly Disney DVDs, and for clothes it's football kits and vintage adult sportswear. All things shops and car booters tend to undervalue.

so ripping off charities eh - hope he sleeps at night. if he knows they are uncharging then he should either pay the going rate or tell them. i know times are hard but this is a bit out of order

 

[Swansman]

so ripping off charities eh - hope he sleeps at night. if he knows they are uncharging then he should either pay the going rate or tell them. i know times are hard but this is a bit out of order

If that bloke doesnt buy them there is a fair chance no one does, as is often the case with books at second hand/charity stores.

 

[bhafc99]

I do enjoy writing and I also have a knack for spotting mistakes so this may be a direction for me.

So can my side hustle be spotting the mistake in your thread title?

 

[Knocky's Nose]

So can my side hustle be spotting the mistake in your thread title?

 

[Whitechapel]

Long story but I sold my car back to Eastbourne Mercedes this week and I got talking to the group used car buyer who has over 30 years of meeting people and buying their (expensive) cars, dealing with successful business people from all walks of life. Shame I'm not one of them.

Anyhow... he told me of a guy who started buying books from charity shops by WEIGHT. Not volume, not the titles, just weight. Charity shops get shit loads of books, bags and bags of them, more than they can sell.

80% of the books are junk - for landfill, 10% are almost saleable and worth a little, 5% saleable and worth something, 4.5% very saleable and worth decent money, 0.4% are worth good money, and 0.1% are worth a lot...

The guy works on numbers.

He turned over £7m last year. Vans all over the UK collecting books.

Started as a side hustle, ended up a big business.... Some of the books (medical ones, rare titles, first editions and so on) are worth hundreds of pounds, sometimes thousands.

so ripping off charities eh - hope he sleeps at night. if he knows they are uncharging then he should either pay the going rate or tell them. i know times are hard but this is a bit out of order

If that bloke doesnt buy them there is a fair chance no one does, as is often the case with books at second hand/charity stores.

As someone who worked for said company for 4 years, they're absolute scumbags. You can make the case that charity shops wouldn't sell the books, it's harder to justify them keeping their mouth shut when a bag is one layer of books and then hundreds of DVDs and CDs underneath. However the list of shit I witnessed there and how the staff were treated makes ripping off charity shops seem quite tame in comparison. A clever idea, but the company was run by some of the most horrible people you'll ever meet.

 

[Stat Brother]

While on the subject of ripping off charity shops

I know of a person who's side hustle was:-

- Driving around charity shops when closed.
- Collecting everything left outside (below the 'don't leave donations outside')
- Sort it into 3 piles - eBay, car boot, charity shop/landfill.
- Pocket the cash.

 

[bhanutz]

so ripping off charities eh - hope he sleeps at night. if he knows they are uncharging then he should either pay the going rate or tell them. i know times are hard but this is a bit out of order

I bet you are fun at parties.... Jeez

 

[Deanbha]

so ripping off charities eh - hope he sleeps at night. if he knows they are uncharging then he should either pay the going rate or tell them. i know times are hard but this is a bit out of order

No not really.

 

[dazzer6666]

While on the subject of ripping off charity shops

I know of a person who's side hustle was:-

- Driving around charity shops when closed.
- Collecting everything left outside (below the 'don't leave donations outside')
- Sort it into 3 piles - eBay, car boot, charity shop/landfill.
- Pocket the cash.

A thief then. And a ***t.

 

[BN9 BHA]

so ripping off charities eh - hope he sleeps at night. if he knows they are uncharging then he should either pay the going rate or tell them. i know times are hard but this is a bit out of order

People donate stuff to charity shops for free, the charity shop sells the stuff, I don’t see an issue here.

 

[m@goo]

So can my side hustle be spotting the mistake in your thread title?

 

[giveusfalmerplease]

People donate stuff to charity shops for free, the charity shop sells the stuff, I don’t see an issue here.

so having personally volunteered and worked for free in charity shops i can tell you they dont have time to trawl through ebay, amazon, friday ad etc etc to figure out how much something might be worth. if its overpriced then clearly it wont sell but someone making a living out of depriving charities of income they need for the good causes they support just isnt right. It certainly fits the description of "hussling".

 

[bn1&bn3 Albion]

I sell second hand flasks and bottle tops, big source of stock locally, I'm thinking of branching out up in Newcastle to offer classes in self awareness.

Open up a shop in one of the cubicles in the WSU.. You'll make a fortune.

 

[marlowe]

so having personally volunteered and worked for free in charity shops i can tell you they dont have time to trawl through ebay, amazon, friday ad etc etc to figure out how much something might be worth. if its overpriced then clearly it wont sell but someone making a living out of depriving charities of income they need for the good causes they support just isnt right. It certainly fits the description of "hussling".

A lot of the charity shops are a lot more savvy than they used to be. Many of them now do take the time to research items. Some of them even sell their more choice items on ebay.

What you perceive as ripping off the charity shops certainly isn't. You say these "husslers" are depriving the charity shops out of income. On the contrary they are providing the charity shops with income by purchasing their stock at the given price. If they priced the items higher they might hang around longer thereby reducing their turnover. They have limited floor and shelf space. They can't afford to have items clogging up their floor space in the hope that someone will one day come along and buy the item at its optimum price. Charity shops rely on turnover and the best way to achieve high turnover is by selling their stock at an attractive price.

 

[marlowe]

A few weeks ago I found an old picture that was left out in the rain next to some bins, clearly having been discarded. I salvaged it and later sold it for £95. A previous picture I found next to some bins and also left out in the rain and slightly warped I salvaged and sold for £60.

 

[Knocky's Nose]

As someone who worked for said company for 4 years, they're absolute scumbags.... A clever idea, but the company was run by some of the most horrible people you'll ever meet.

Sorry to hear that. Clearly I had no knowledge they were twunts or I wouldn't have mentioned them (whoever they are, I don't know the name of the company!).

Hopefully you found a better job with better employees!

 

[BN9 BHA]

so having personally volunteered and worked for free in charity shops i can tell you they dont have time to trawl through ebay, amazon, friday ad etc etc to figure out how much something might be worth. if its overpriced then clearly it wont sell but someone making a living out of depriving charities of income they need for the good causes they support just isnt right. It certainly fits the description of "hussling".

I don’t get your point.
As I said and you know they get all their stock for free, so every sale is 100% profit.

I have worked in charity shops doing maintenance plumbing and people are donating items all the time, I’ve seen a stock room packed with clothes.
Surely the dealers are very good customers buying up this donated stuff.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Some 25 years ago I used to know a guy in Ardingly who on a trip on an aircraft, coming back from holiday was asked to put any foreign change in an envelope for charity. He asked what happened to it. The answer was that when the company had enough they would try to cash it in back in the country of origin.

He struck upon the idea of contacting all the airlines and exchanging these coins/notes straight into their charity bank accounts. This grew to him owning a number of secure vans moving money around Europe mainly. When the Euro come out he thought his business was going to suffer. It most certainly didn't. Most countries had their own version of the Euro in notes and coins. The banks/customers preferred their own version therefore he set about moving them back to the country of origin. He business grew rapidly.

He went from being a small time chicken farmer to being a very wealthy man.

 

[Whitechapel]

Sorry to hear that. Clearly I had no knowledge they were twunts or I wouldn't have mentioned them (whoever they are, I don't know the name of the company!).

Hopefully you found a better job with better employees!

No worries, you weren't to know. It is a genius idea, and they've made themselves very rich with it. It's just hard not to harbour some animosity when you're suspended and put on a final warning for an incident that happened when you were at Carrow Road watching Brighton lose - especially when it means you're moved to a department with one other person who speaks no English and who has numerous fits/seizures every day. Especially as there isn't a single other person in the entire warehouse and you have no first aid/medical training.

Thankfully I got out of there 4 years ago. In the 4 years I worked there 3 people went home from a shift and died. That isn't normal. Staying there any longer would have taken years off my life.

 

[Sheebo]

Side hustle? I'm not interested; I'm making shit loads out of computers.

Ever done speedway?