Money Ideas

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:

Sales of 100 bottles: $200

Rent: $50

Cost of 100 bottles: $20

2 Huge Water Coolers: 40

Ice: $3

Misc: $10 (accounting for anything else, like transportation)

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.

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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Note: Don’t mind my lame selection of songs above. Substitute those songs with great ones you have in mind.

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.

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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Total Cost and Sales.
Sonicare Elite 7500 is going to sell for at least 29.99 + 5 shipping = $34.99. This makes the net earnings unofficially at $35.17.

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.

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.

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.