Growing Money

I was cleaning up this weekend and I find a lot of things I no longer need anymore. I was about to throw or give them away but I thought maybe I can make a little experiment out of this. I’ll put up the items on the Internet and see how much I can make out of this trash and see if it’s worth the time and effort to post everything up as opposed to just giving or throwing them away. My instincts and experience tell me that it’s not worth the time and effort to post them up. I have posted items up on the Internet before and it is very time consuming to write up a post and attach pictures.

Here are some of the items that I’ll put up for sale. I used to post items up on eBay but eBay takes up too much time and fees. I have recently signed up for Craigslist and I have found it to be a much faster way to post up items. I like the simple interface and it only takes a few clicks to post up items, much quicker than eBay. And postings on Craigslist are free.

Some items for sale:
NetGear MR814 082.11b Wireless Router (box, almost new) - $20
Airnet 108mbps Wireless USB Pen Adapter (Retailed Box, sealed) - $30
Gigafast Wireless USB Adapter 802.11b-g (Retailed Box, almost new) - $25
Belkin Ethernet NIC (Retailed Box, sealed) x2 - $5 each
Linksys Fast Ethernet NIC (Retail Box, almost new) $5
Fast Etherlink NIC (as is) - $2
Motorola 56K modem (as is) - $2
Monitor Switch Box (as is) - $2
Battery Charger & Meter Tester (as is) - $5

As I hate doing the packing and shipping, I will be requesting for pick-ups. Packing and shipping just takes too much time and will make selling these items a drag. It took me half an hour to take pictures and put up those items on Cragislist. I wish there’s an easier way to post all the items up. I would like the idea of a virtual backyard sale where people can browse virtually to see what they want without me having to individually going through every item. That would be an awesome idea. I’ll put a mental note on the virtual backyard sale idea.

I also have a lot of books that I would like to get rid of. Does anyone what is a fast way to get rid of books - say a yard sale or even a donation place that would take books?
I’ll post updates on this experiment in a week and we’ll see how things go.

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Last Sunday, I went to NY’s Aqueduct Flea Market, the largest outdoor flea market on the East Coast. The flea market area is indeed huge. There are many stores and they sell items ranging from little 99 cent gadgets to sunglasses to clothing to food to luggage bags — almost anything. From what I’ve seen on that day, it looks like a doable business. It would be worth a shot if you can get a lot of items for really cheap. The rent is about $50 for a table.

I know someone there renting two big lots, about $175 each. He sells clothing and fake jewelry and is making over $2000 a day. I walked around the flea market and I see a store selling one-dollar and plus items. While I was there, one guy bought $20 of stuff. Those small items add up!

I’m thinking maybe I can rent the smallest area for about $50 a day and sell iced cold water bottles. I’d charge $2.00 for a half liter bottle. (It was really hot when I was there yesterday. Summer is usually hot, so good for selling water.) I’d need 25 customers to break even for the rent. Let’s play the number game, assuming I will sell 100 bottles a day. Here are the estimates:

Net Profit: $77
After the one time water cooler expense, it’ll be a recurring $117 net profit.

I think once I get the equipment and things set, I can pick up a nice profit. I can also sell soft drinks.

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I called my friend on Friday to wish her a happy birthday and I thought… I wish there’s a way I can play the Happy Birthday song over the phone. Maybe there should be a service where people can select a song and play it over someone’s voicemail. For instance, I could just call a company, select a song, and record my personal message. “Hey, I want to wish you a happy birthday. [Music beings and the song plays].”
This idea can expand to beyond just a birthday song — to any song. You can pick a song for a girlfriend, a wife, a best friend, or a niece for graduation.

How does it work?
You call a company that hosts the service, SEND-A-TUNE (for example). You pick a song from the selection. The selection should include a wide range of music, genre, and artists. You enter the destination voicemail number. You are allowed to record a personal message before and after the song. You make a payment. The payment can be done with a credit card or you can open a membership account that speeds up the process. The song and message gets delivered to the target.

Why send a song?
Sometimes a song can express your feelings and thoughts. Send a song to confess your love. Send an apology. Send a congratulation message. There are many reasons.

• Example #1: John had feelings for Rebecca but never had the courage to tell her. He sends the song, “Nobody Knows.”

• Example #2: Maggie appreciates the five years she’s been with her boyfriend. On her anniversary, she picks “Thank God I Found You” and sends that to him.

• Example #3: Jimmy just graduated high school. He picks “That’s What Friends Are For” and sends them to two of his best friends.

Who would pay for this service?
Mostly teens and young adults, but people of any age can be a customer. I imagine mostly lovebirds and people who like music. But parents can send songs to kids to express their love and care. That gives parents another way to tighten the gap with their kids.

How much would it cost for users?
The service has to be inexpensive for people to use it. One-time payment and memberships are available as well.

Great expansion idea for existing music stations.
I think this would be a great opportunity for existing music stations like Yahoo! Music to implement. They already have all the licensing and it would be a great thing to add to their services.

Added 10/8/2005:
Easy Payment
One easy way for customers to pay is to have it charged to their phone bill. The music company can talk to the phone company about this. If the customer doesn’t like adding to their phone bill, they can sign up for a charge-card where they enter their account # and a pin#.

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I’m going to explore AdSense as well. I’ll have to place the ads more strategically on the site to maximize the number of views and clicks. If this is not making me more than five cents a week but instead this is hurting people’s eyes, then I’ll revert back to a less ad-intrusive blog.

I spent some time playing around with the ads and placement. It doesn’t seem like AdSense allows you to place more than 3 ads in one page. Of all the places, I like the one on the top the most. I also picked a more green color to match the blog layout. I hope more people can see the ads now and it will make more money for me.

MMI #7 completed.

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To take on Neville’s challenge, I’ve decided to take action on Money-Making Idea # 5: “Ebay Your Junk.” I am going through all the items in my apartment and look for items to dump or sell. This project will serve two purposes. First, I clean up my place and clear up some space. And second, I may make some cash. As a bonus, I will a prize from Nev.

I started cleaning up some drawers and picking some items out. I posted the items I don’t need anymore for sale on ebay.

Item #1: Kingston Memory Expansion Kit (KTH-LJ4000E/16)

I have 3 of these. It’s hard to sell.

Item #2: Sonicare Elite 7500 Power Toothbrush

This item got a bid shortly after I posted.

Item #3: Motorola V60i Cell Phone

I should have sold this phone long time ago for good money. It was sitting on my desk for almost two years. Like any tech device, a cell phone goes out of flavor really quickly. The money I can get back on this one is very little now.

Item #4: Laser Pointer

I have two of these. If anyone is interested, let me know.

Item #5: irock! 860 MP3 Player (256 MB)

Very nice MP3 player. I got the iPod Shuffle now, so I no longer use this.

As an experiment, I also posted up some coupons. I have seen a lot of people selling coupons on the web. I don’t think it’s worth my time for the money, but I did it anyway to check it out.
Coupon #1: Office Depot $15 off (This one is sold for $3.25)

Coupon #2: UNO, Borders, and Blockbuster

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When I was in college, I was hooked on hot deal websites and I blew a lot of money on it. Sometimes I would have to buy multiple items to use a dollar off couple. Then I would end up with stuff I don’t need. Eventually, I figure out I could sell some of the stuff I bought for a small profit. The biggest profit margins I get are the free-after-rebate products. Say, I picked up a $40 software and send in a $40 rebate, I would end up getting the product for free. Then I would sell it on a forum or ebay for like $5 or $10. The profit margin was off course huge, like infinity!!, but the actually profits and time spent was not alway so worth it.

If you look carefully on the hot deals, sometimes you can get pretty good deals on products that has a lot of demand. One product that I used to buy often was routers. Sometimes they have rebates for them, making the price really hot. I could get a $50 router for $20 after rebate and sell it on a forum or ebay for $40.

I did follow this money-making idea for a while during college, so it has been proven. I wasn’t so aggressive and I was picky so I didn’t earn too much. I only picked products that I would keep if they doesn’t sell and I would only sell one or two items at a time. The risk for me was relatively safe as I spent on average of $20 or less per product and I sold them out pretty quickly. I made about $1000 in a year’s time. Afterwards, I got tired of packaging items and going to the post office. Actually, I was okay with packaging items, but I hated to go to the post office because it was so out of my way.

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Go through all the items in your home and see what you don’t use or need anymore. Like they said, “your junk can be someone’s treasure.” It is therefore a good idea to turn all these no-use items to money for you.

This idea can serve two purposes. First, you get a chance to clean up your house and make more space. Second, you get to earn back a little money for getting rid of all that stuff.

I have a lot of things I want to get rid of in my apartment as well. There’s definitely a lot of junk in my place. I’m just concern about selling big items because I would have problems shipping them. In any case, I need to go with this idea, because more than the money itself, I really want to clean up my place. I have a lot of magazines. If you’re interested, let me know.

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I have done some tech support before. I used to fix computers on the weekends for people for a measly fee. I guess I was shy about the price, but I’ve learn when you want to run a business, you really can’t be shy about charging people or anything in that matter. Income is the key to your success, so *chuckles* you better bill them or you’ll be out of business.

I’m thinking of bringing this computer hobby back and make some side money. Despite the Internet and computer growth a lot people are still unfamiliar with installing an operating system or even just plain installing MS Office. Therefore, I can become handy.

Also, I live in an apartment complex where people are very well off. I’m talking about 100K/year and up, so I’ll put them into the higher income-earning demographics. Just the kind of people I need to seek business with. Now the question is how do I get the message out?

I don’t want to be knocking on everyone’s door and soliciting them for my business. Instead, I’m thinking of printing business cards and passing them out as I meet the people. That may seem slow though, but since it’s only a hobby/experiment, I’m not going to rush it.

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One of the best ways to earn additional income around the clock is to create a website that draws a lot of traffic and generates revenue for you. The more audience you can attract the better. Once you have a popular site, you can think of ways to make money off that. Of course, it’s not as easy as you think.

The best kind of website to create is one that you are interested in. This is very important because your interest is deeply reflected in the quality of the site. If you’re really motivated in keeping the site updated and interesting, people will see that and they will keep going back.

There are so many different kind of websites you can do. For example, if you’re good at writing and like to eat, you can start a food critic web page. There are tons of food sites, I know.. but again, quality and dedication makes a difference between you and the competition. One thing I always learn is to start small when you’re venturing out. Do some reviews in your local neighborhood first so you people can see that you are an expert in that area. Then you can start venturing out and write about restaurants in nearby neighborhoods.

Just when you think all the ideas are already exhausted, I found something new. Take a look at RapidShare. They give out free temp space for users to share files, and they load up the page with ads. But since this is a great way to share files, it attracts many audience and ads get tons of impressions. In addition, they restrict downloads to a certain amount and charge users if they want to lift that download cap. RapidShare also does web hosting. I think the whole web space + hosting business is a great idea.

So as you can see, it’s still possible to come out with great ideas on the net. Just think what else could be useful for people. You may have a great idea, just put it to work and you may be making more money than sitting in your couch during your free time thinking about the possible website you would have.

I’m just getting started on a website that I wanted to do. No word on it yet, but it’ll be fun for me… even if I don’t make money. I guess that’s how you should look at it. Even if I don’t earn much, at least I learn.

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I’ve been really inspired by the money they made off advertisements in Apprentice, so I’ve been thinking of more ideas. In one episode of the first season, one team had advertisements on the rickshaws and made more than a thousand of dollars in one day. Instead of rickshaws, I can go on foot. Since I jog along the river on the weekends, maybe I can pass out flyers on the way. The only problem with flyers is that people throw them on the ground. So I thought, why not print ads on napkins — at least there’s a use for them. Other joggers or pedestrians may need to wipe their face, hands, or just hold it in their pockets until necessary.

To further explore this idea. The napkins can be distributed to restaurants and have the napkins placed on the tables. That’s one of the first things you notice when you sit down in a restaurant. And napkins are always used so the chances of people seeing the ads are high. Of course, the prints on the napkins will be safe to wipe your mouth.

Now, I’ll just have to find sponsors to invest money on my idea. I can give out free napkins to restaurants. It’s good for them too since they’ll save money on that — not a lot of money, but think long term… free napkins for life. On weekends, I can go jogging and pass out napkins for people who need to wipe the sweats out of their face or messy people who spill soda on their pants, or just curious bystanders trying to get free stuff. People will look at napkins and they will be brainwashed with the ads on them. Napkins are useful, so most people will fold them and put them in their pockets or bags. In addition, I’ll have a dozen “DON’T LITTER” fine prints around the edges of the napkin to reinforce the message.

Overall, I think the idea carries some weight and deserves to be explored.

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