Kids these days! Am I right?! My 2 year old knows how to use my Kindle to watch youtube videos, while my 5 year old son keeps wanting a cell phone and a laptop. I remember being happy with barbies and dressing up my cat when I was little. Times sure have changed. If you have a child that’s computer savvy and likes taking pics, you can get them on board to help with this way of earning. It’s a great way to learn how a business cooperates and helps to promote creative thinking and how to think outside the box. For me I hope that I can teach both my kids to think this way and inspire them to see other ways of living and ways to promote self reliance. This method of earning is one that I have done so many times I could do it in my sleep. I actually figured this out really because I got lazy about doing this the way I had been doing it, still earning money,but it was very time consuming. I thought to myself. What if there was a way to do the same thing, earn the same amount,but simplify and streamline the process. Here is what I did and why this works. I started selling on ebay in 2000. Ok, just say it, I’m old. I turned 38 this year, time flies. So anyhoo, I have learned so much from this website. I learned the value of my time, how to work smarter, not harder. How to take great pics (a picture is worth a thousand words right?) How to deal with customers, how to under promise and over deliver! How to print labels, pack and ship, how to mark up at least 40%..so many amazing things that have laid the foundation for the way I think today, independently. Yep, I’m a bit of a free spirit. oK maybe a little stubborn, but I like to think of it as determined. ;) So here’s the million dollar question for you? Do you have free 2-5 hours a week? If so read on. If not, this might not be for you and be sure to check out my other posts. So how can you make $100-$200 a week with only 1-2 hours of time? After all time is money right. It’s all about trading your time for money. But what if you could trade less of your time for more money, would you be in? Of course you would. Who wouldn’t? This is the simple process…. You will be selling…drum roll please…clothing lots!!!! What are clothing lots? Clothing lots are a group of clothes sold together. This is a time saver for so many reasons. #1 Less pictures to take and upload #2 Less listings to complete, this is a very tedious process for those of you that are new to this. #3 Less packages to ship #4 Less annoying emails, questions and customer service work involved. #5 One consistent product You have to first figure out how to get these clothes at the cheapest, most rock bottom price to maximize your return. Now some math, I know I hate math too, but this will be easy and lead you to a great profit so it’s worth it. Let’s look at selling baby clothes as an example, you can sell any you kind you want, kids, womens ofrmens, but this is just an example. Think about this. On ebay each piece of baby clothes goes for about .50- $1 in a lot so you need to find this stuff for .10-.25 a piece to make it worth your while. I find mine for around .10 a peice. If you have 100 pieces of name brand baby clothing for example you could fetch $100 for this lot. If you sell them for .50 each @ 100 pieces this lot is $50. Easy right? Here’s what a typical transaction looks like for me. 100 pieces $10.00 cost Sell for $100-$10.00=$90 profit minus ebay and paypal fees about $15 so I’m left with a $75 profit on one box..not too bad. Now if I sell two a week that’s an extra $150 $150 x 4=$600 extra income. You might have to sell between 4 lots a week to make it to $200. Which is totally reasonable. Only four boxes to pack and ship. And USPS comes and picks them up if you ship priority. So where do you find things this cheap? #1 Frequent rummage sales. I always look on craigslist. Either under garage sales or community. The best ones are church ones. I love bag days because you can get bags of clothing for $1 or $2 each. If you go on the last day, they just give you stuff a lot of the time because they want to pack up and go home. #2 Garage sales. These are probably one of the best places to buy used clothing since you can get things so cheap. If I see something in a box and I know I could re-sell the whole box I will just make an offer on the whole box instead of going through everything. I’ve gotten full boxes of name brand clothing it way for $15-20. The downside to this is most yard sales and garage sales happen on the weekend so you might have to give up a day each weekend or at least the morning. #3 Thrift stores. Most thrift stores have a discount day. Even goodwill has these days. Sign up for newsletters and sale alerts. A thrift store in my area has dime day once a week where everything downstairs is a dime, clothes, household items, shoes, kids clothing, tons of stuff. This place is a rare find and how I get most of my re-sell items. #4 Make thrift store owners you new BFF. Be friendly, ask questions. find out when the best stuff comes out. Ask what they do with stuff that doesn’t sell. They might either give it to you or give it to you for a huge discount. Let them know you are a re-seller and you are basically in the same business. It helps to network and connect with others in the same business. I have a good friend that owns one thrift store down the street from where I live, he basically let’s me have first dibbs on things that come in or he will hold something for me that he thinks I would be interested in. #5 Start with what you have. If you have kids I’m sure you have a bunch of stuff they outgrew just sitting around. Why not start with this as your foundation. Sell and now you have some money to use to buy some clothes for you next lot. A great way to start free! Now some tips. You need a scale (you can buy on…you guessed it ..ebay for about $15 free shipping) Use calculated shipping based on the persons location. Make sure to not over look the shipping. Since this is a large, heavy package going out, you need to calculate this right or you could lose your loot quickly. Make sure to inspect for rips and stains. Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t want to receive yourself. Always wash everything and dry with some good fabric softener. I always include a dryer sheet in the box so when the customer opens it everything smells fresh, I think customers really appreciate that because they know things are clean and read to wear. Go the extra mile. Include a little thank you note saying how you appreciate the business and how they are helping a stay at home mom. Make sure the pics look nice and everything is folded. Take several pics and highlight the main best items in some close ups. Natural lighting works best. If you can open a window and take in front of window this works great. LEt me point out. I haven’t done this consistently, i.e. each week for a month like this because I have had so many other things going on lately but I will try to do this for one month consistently and show you profit vs. costs and time etc. If you like this post. Please leave me comment and let me know. I plan on doing a lot more of these so stay turned. -helping moms build (real) multiple streams of income at home.